North
by Forfaxia
Summary: Korra responds to a call for help from a village in the Northern Water Tribe that's being plagued by a malevolent spirit. What she discovers there is going to take more than a simple trip to the Spirit World to fix. Eventual Amorra.
1. The Arrival

"How much longer until we're there, Korra?"

It had been three hours since Jinora had said a word- three words in fact, "thank you, no" when she was offered a brackish-looking cup of tea at the last village they stopped at. In fact the Avatar had become so used to the silence that the studious girl had to repeat her question since she had become so taken with watching the rugged scenery roll by.

"Hmm? Oh. Shouldn't be more than an hour if Naga keeps up this pace!" the twenty-year old woman leaned down in the saddle to pat her trusty mount, "Right girl?"

At least that's what it looked like on the map… she thought. While she had managed to slip away from Republic City to travel in the last year or so, maps still just weren't her forte. Besides, Naga had enough sense of direction for the both of them. Or all three, since Tenzin had agreed to let Jinora come along on this trip to the Northern Water Tribe lands. Whether he honestly thought the trip was of educational merit or just an excuse to get his precocious teenage daughter out of the house was up for debate, but Korra didn't mind. Traveling alone got taxing. She talked to herself a lot, but while Naga was receptive (and certainly sympathetic), she wasn't the greatest conversationalist- even compared to Jinora when she was in the midst of a book.

"So then it's fifteen leagues from here to Tayra?" the young airbender piped up after a minute of what Korra called 'brainbending'.

"Uuhh… sure!"

As usual, without any prompting, Jinora explained, "When we left the coast I counted how long it took Naga to run from the edge of the dock to the street. There was an Earth Kingdom junk docked next to us and everyone knows that all Earth Kingdom merchant vessels are a standard length per King Kuei's Doctrines of Marine Trade- so it was pretty easy figuring out from there that Naga can travel about fifteen leagues in an hour. Fourteen and a half, really, but we have a good tail wind."

Since she had her back turned, Korra could roll her eyes in peace. "That's… awesome, Jinora." Everybody was told to encourage her logical thinking skills and appetite for knowledge, but she had become an incorrigible knowitall in her teenage years. All of the airbender children were growing up into lovable terrors. Ikki had only become more daring, nearly crashing her glider into the statue of her grandfather in Yue Bay because she had challenged General Iroh to a race… in his aeroplane. Ever since Rohan learned to walk, he and Meelo had been thick as Air Nomad custard and no corner of the island was safe from their hijinks (of course, Korra did the right thing and showed them the best secret passages for sneaking around). The last three years since the fall of the Equalist Revolution flew by with them near, it almost made Korra feel old. Not that she admitted that out loud anymore. Not after Pema threw a wooden spoon at her for daring to call herself old at 20.

Granted, Korra had grown up, too. While she was stunted most of her life at the White Lotus compound, moving to Republic City and having to deal with the Equalists forced her to make up for lost time and then some. She had matured into a fully-realized avatar and a fully-grown woman- though she never lost her impetuous nature… And her relationship with the spirit world was hardly chatty. But she was comfortable knowing that she could call upon her past lives if needed and was in charge of her own life.

Naga continued to bolt across the tundra, which was becoming rockier the further inland they went. Korra had decided to traverse the island across the middle to reach their destination- the village of Tayra, which had a harbor so small that the United Republic freighter they arrived on didn't want anything to do with it. Besides, the Northern Water Tribe Territory was starkly beautiful. It reminded Korra of the South (except rockier) and Jinora was entertained looking up landmarks and species of animals in the bundle of books she had packed along.

She was reading one on Northern Water Tribe culture at that moment, since she didn't want to make a bad impression on her first big trip without her parents. She had urged Korra to read it, too, but the Avatar shrugged it off with an eloquent "naaaah". She was Water Tribe after all, how different could their customs be, particularly at a rural village like Tayra?

"Ooh, Korra, according to this in the Northern Water Tribe it's customary to offer your host a side of blubbered seal jerky. The more blubber on the meat, the more prosperous your host and his household will be!" she recited the trivia with a rapt glee.

"I've actually never heard of that." It was an interesting piece of information, albeit silly. But other than a few scraps in the saddlebag Korra had had her eye on, they didn't have any jerky.

"… Yeah, we're not doing that…" she added flatly.

"But!"

"Jinora, we're not here on vacation. I'm sure our host will be fine with us arriving jerkiless to help them with their spirit problem. Besides, that book's like fifty years old."

The airbender pouted in the name of ethnographic curiosity. She dug into the russet-colored woolen shawl her mother had knitted to pull out a few scraps of paper. Since Korra had brought it up, she marked her place in the book (since dog-earing pages was cruel) then grabbed a scroll from her satchel. It was an account from the time of Avatar Kyoshi about spirits wreaking havoc on a town near Omashu.

"How do you plan on handling that?"

"The spirit problem?" she peered over her shoulder and quickly squished her eyes from the afternoon snowglare. That was going to take some time to get used to again.

"Yes." Jinora slowly unfurled the scroll.

"Well," she scratched at her bangs in thought," I figured I'd ask around amongst the villagers to see what we're up against and maybe I can reason with the spirit. It's probably some miscommunication. All the telegraph said is that a few caribou-oxen have gone missing from their paddocks and some strange symbols were left in the snow around town. Hey, if anything it's probably some spirit trying to pull a prank and the the caribou-oxen are just grazing a valley over or something."

It made sense. Sometimes spirits got bored or wanted to keep their human neighbors on their toes- particularly as close to the Winter Solstice as it was, when the veil between the spirit and material worlds were thin. When she was little her parents used to make her leave stewed sea prunes and cragberries outside her window for the spirits to eat on the solstice. Of course, she always had the twinging suspicion that the White Lotus guards were the ones actually scoffing them off.

It was scarcely an hour later that Naga hauled the two girls to the top of a bluff which overlooked the coast. Below, strewn along the rocky beach was the village of Tyra. There couldn't have been more than two dozen buildings, belching greasy gray smoke from the holes in their roofs. The sea breeze mixed with the scent of fish, curing seaweed, tanning hides, and real Water Tribe cookery that made Korra's indomitable stomach lurch with excitement. If the Northern Tribe was anything like the South, full hospitality would be in order. She positively beamed at the thought. True, she was there with a mission, but that didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy herself…

"That's Tyra?" Jinora peered over her shoulder. It was so tiny! It all could have fit on Air Temple Island!

"Sure is," she urged Naga onwards down the bluff, " At least we won't have any problems finding our-"

"Hm? Finding what?"

The avatar stared unblinkingly down at the sea.

"Korra?"

She didn't reply. A wave of something she could only describe as spiritual unease had washed over her- as dark and violent as the white caps hammering the nearby shore. Little fish seemed to swim up and down her stomach with little heartbeats of dread beating in her palms, and every inch of her tawny skin tightened. The sound of roaring water flooded her ears. Some energy, some force was making her gape at Tyra. It was something not quite like fear and hardly excitement, but made her anxious all the same. Was it the so-called spirit that had invaded the town making its presence known? Was Aang trying to tell her something?

"What is it Korra?" Jinora was clamouring over her lap to see what was the matter. Even Naga had stopped halfway down the hill to whine at her master's sudden change.

Waves. Water. The wind just before a storm. It all tossed around in her head and soaked her nerves in ice. Then it emptied. Like someone had unplugged a bath basin with her head underwater. She choked and gasped herself back into reality and became aware of Jinora's warm hand rubbing her back as if she had just puked. Truth was, she wanted to. She felt queasy.

"What was that? It didn't look like the Avatar State, your eyes were normal."

Korra wanted to reassure her. She became less dazed with each passing second. "I don't know. But something wanted me to know it was there."

"The spirit?"

"Maybe," she murmured, then buried her face in her hands to massage her cheeks. _Snap out of it_, she smacked her temples,_ you have a job to do_. She looked down at Tyra again: it was obvious that they had been seen by the locals- little figures of blue and purple were gathering towards the largest building at the center of town. Taps of drums surged above the sounds of the sea in an energetic rhythm.

"Well," she grinned, "They look happy to see us."

The little fish still swam in her stomach, though. She decided for the sake of concentration that it was hunger. Right. Hunger.

Her hands tugged Naga's reins. "Let's go, girl!" The polar bear-dog responded with a few excited thwacks of her tail before barreling down the hill and across the plain. Jinora held on for dear life.

By the time they had bounded to the meeting house, the entire village had turned out to see the Avatar. Not just the embodiment of peace and their benevolent connection to the spirit world, but one of their own. It was a sea of relieved smiles gazing upon the beautiful young woman astride her polar bear-dog, a symbol of her ability to tame the raw elements. Korra beamed right back at them. Her sky blue eyes tried to seek every face in the crowd in appreciation. They all looked awfully tired, though. In the golden light of the late afternoon she could see the gray shadows and puffs under their eyes, as if they had been up all night and day waiting her arrival.

Perhaps the most haggard-looking of them all was a stout, middle-aged man with a beard that shamed a walruswhale. His features looked like a weathered wood carving, but his eyes were as bright and blue as Korra's. It was obvious at first glance that he held some weight in the community by the strings of bone beads around his neck and the tails of wolves pluming from the crest of his hat.

Spurred on by the drums and cheering of the small crowd, Korra vaulted over the horn of Naga's saddle. She soared like a puffinowl and landed with an audible crunch in front of the large ice lodge.

Jinora extricated herself with a decidedly deadpan expression.

The bearded man approached them with his gloved hands clasped together. Instantly, the drums stopped. "My most honored greetings to you, Avatar. I am Kaisun, head of this village." He bowed low.

"Glad to meet you Kaisun," Korra returned the greeting, her wolftail of hair swishing. She gestured to her traveling companion, who had quietly placed herself nearby, "This is Jinora, daughter of the airbending Master Tenzin. She's come with me to help look into your problems."

Jinora stooped into a bow and without prompting declared to the leader, "Honored. May the great Ocean and Moon spirits shine their prosperity upon you and your household!"

Korra rolled her eyes. There goes Jinora, overdoing it again. Maybe if she-

"It is so comforting to see that proper manners have made their way to Republic City. I am honored to receive such a polite child of a respected master," Kaisun exclaimed approvingly, and placed a hand on Jinora's shoulder. Korra nearly smacked herself in the forehead. Maybe she should have read the book….

He turned to face the gathered population. "Normally we would honor you Avatar with a feast, but time is sadly against us in this matter. But I am certain that once you have cleansed us of our blight, we will have a celebration twice as joyful! But for now, we must discuss your plan of action." His face fell. Suddenly the histrionics were knocked out of him and he nodded towards the circular door of the meeting house.

Korra gazed at the villagers one more time before following him inside. They suddenly all looked grim, like Kaisun. It looked like her arrival even ultimately depressed them. Elders made their way into the meeting house, frowning. Families dispersed to their homes, deflated in their parkas and clutching their children close. One tall man in a gray anorak caught her eye momentarily for some reason. He gave her the most pained stare possible from over his collar- then moved along like the others. Why was everyone so depressed over some strange markings and missing caribou-oxen? They were pretty tasty, sure- but did they deserve the same reaction as a death in the family? Whatever the reason, the gloom and dread was rubbing off, her stomach was quaking again all of a sudden…

**Notes:**

- I based the Northern Water Tribe off of canon, of course, but also the Yupik, Inuit, and Northwest Coast cultures of North America- particularly the Tlingit and Haida.

-Kaisun is the archaeological site of a Haida Indian village in Canada.


	2. The Mission

_Whoo, chapter two. Thanks to everyone who's read so far, I know this is a bit of a slow mover, but after this the Amorra wheels will start turning. Again, if you're interested in the anthropological tidbits I used in this chapter, they're at the bottom._

[Chapter Rating:T]

Korra stooped into the peak-roofed meeting house. It was crafted from ice, like most permanent buildings in the Northern Water Tribe, with designs etched into the frosty walls. Even the interior walls were expertly decorated. Naga tried to follow her in, but got stuck in the small round doorway. Like an earthworm wriggling out of its hole during a rainstorm, she tried to budge herself into the lodge.

"Sorry girl," she scritched a knuckle into the coarse fur on the polar bear-dog's muzzle, "Looks like you have to stay outside… I'll be out to feed you soon, I promise!"

Jinora was sitting on a mat upon a sunken platform in the floor, feverishly trying to sketch the wall decorations in her notebook. Korra took a seat beside her. A fire roared just below them in a pit carved right into the earth, providing great warmth and the tantalizing smell of octopus that roasted just above it. She was suddenly reminded of how hungry she was.

Kaisun and a collection of people she assumed was the village council sat across from her, while on her other side a round-faced woman mixed a large pot of something delicious… Maybe it was five-flavo-

"Avatar Korra," Kaisun broke her famished thoughts," Our situation has become worse. Much, much worse."

Though she didn't dare say it, Korra thought: _What? Is a spirit stealing crabs or boat oars? Or maybe clothes off the line?_

He continued bleakly, "For the last two nights, something has been stealing our children. Five are missing. Two the other night, three last night."

Suddenly the Avatar looked incredulous- what kind of a spirit stole children? She and Jinora exchanged looks of fright. "Has anyone seen it? The thing that's taking them?"

One by one, the villagers shook their heads. Two of the women were locked in an embrace, crying. From their tired, grief-stricken faces Korra could tell they were mothers of some of the missing children. It made her initial shock turn to burning rage. Her fist clenched and pounded into her other hand, like a violent rendition of the Fire Nation salute.

Kaisun fingered a carved bone disc on his necklace, "We don't know what it is, other than it's not of this world. This morning we found the tracks of Nukka, one of the missing girls-"

One of the women broke out into a pitiful wail.

"- they just stopped. No sign of struggle or violence, like something had simply flown away with her. We tried to tell you, but the nearest telegraph is at Rudderhead Point. It's half a day's sail from here. By the time our message reached your ship, you were gone."

Guilt struck her now. If only she had gotten there faster. The air up North was too thin to fly one of the new aeroplanes in, but airbender gliders could have made the trip in a matter of days- though at the expense of leaving Naga behind. She could have gotten here and had given this spirit a piece of her mind well before the situation worsened. Her face knitted into a vengeful scowl as she met Kaisun's eyes,"What do we know about this monster?"

"It only comes out at night. A few of the fishermen along the shore thought they heard some strange whispering near the cove, but no one has reported seeing it." The raccoon tails on his hat drooped as he bowed his head. "We don't understand, Avatar Korra. We live simply and offer what thanks we can to the spirits- we have done nothing to anger them."

"Speak with them for us Avatar! We would give up anything to have our children back!" an old woman with braids down to the floor keened.

"Bring my Ayla back to me, please!" a man in a sealskin hat added.

Soon all of them were admonishing her to talk to the Spirit World, to tell the spirits that they were sorry for some transgression they forgot, and the names of their children- over and over like a mantra of grief. It was a flood of pained desperation that made her all the more determined to punish whatever had done this.

The young woman's generous chest bobbed as she took in a deep breath, then stood. "Kaisun- do you think this will happen again? Do you think the spirit will come again tonight?"

"We hope not. But if it should, what few warriors and waterbenders we have are preparing to keep watch all night."

"I'll join them. We'll stop this, I promise and _we'll get your children back_!" In those last words she could feel the power of a thousand voices from her past, certain and sure.

"Korra- how do we know all of the children are still alive?" Jinora whispered as they ate. It had taken nearly an hour for all of the villagers present to cycle through and express their gratitude or describe their child's appearance in minute detail- eight year-old Nukka was missing her front tooth, seven year-old Sapok apparently had a birthmark in the shape of a flying wolfbat on his belly, and so on… Lest she forget, Jinora had jotted it all down diligently.

The Avatar slurped up a seaweed noodle to avoid answering the question right away. She didn't want to think about it. Maybe if she concentrated, she could meditate on it and try to sense their souls… but it was quickly becoming late. Her eyes darted to the round doorway- there was still a golden line of sunlight pouring through from under the seal hide flap. It could take hours to get any sort of answer, let alone one that made sense then and there. "We're just going to have to have faith. A spirit probably wouldn't give them any real harm. That just doesn't make sense if the villagers haven't done anything wrong."

Jinora's upper lip twinged in frustration as she fished a roasted pygmy octopus out of her noodles and deposited it in Korra's bowl. "But what if it isn't a spirit?"

"I hope it isn't," she replied coolly.

"What?"

Korra's brows- like raven eagle wings- swooped down, "If it's not from the spirit world, that means I can fight it." Or kill it, should it come to that. Aang certainly wouldn't approve, but the thought of something hurting children, spirit or material, made her blood boil. Then another awful thought crossed her mind. What about Jinora?

The teenage airbender was devouring stewed sea prunes with great gusto. It had been exciting to her to find a Water Tribe dish that wasn't laced with chunks of meat. She sucked all of the gloppy delicacy pensively from her spoon while her finger traced lines of text on an old scroll. Spirits. Tenzin would kill Korra (reincarnation of his father or not) if any harm came to her, not that she would be able to live with herself. "Jinora, you don't have to go out tonight and stand guard with me."

"But I want to help. I can use my glider and keep an eye out in the air!"

"No… Jinora- what if your dad was here?"

The girl's pale face morphed into an impish smile, "I'd sneak out and help you anyhow."

Couldn't argue with that. "Good point," she smirked, then fell into a grim frown Tenzin would have approved of, "But the first sign of trouble, you go airborne. Got it?" Oh Spirits. Her finger was out. ___The_finger. When did Bei Fong get there?

"Avatar Korra! Our warriors have gathered, they await your orders!" Kaisun's voice called from the door and echoed through the icy hall. It temporarily distracted the her, but not enough to make her forget. "Do you promise?" she whipped the Finger of Parenting out again before she rose to ascend the platform.

"Yes, cross my heart and hope to fly."

"Flameo," Korra cracked her knuckles and left the lodge. The responsible, bookish Jinora pulled her crossed fingers out from under her shawl.

Tyra had a respectable offering of men turn out for patrol. Some reported wearing their typical parkas and carrying hunting spears while others decided that it would be their one time in life to go to battle and wore full warrior wolf armor. A few puffed up their chests as Korra made a pass of inspection, like she had seen Bei Fong do before police raids. One or two of the younger men winked and she had to stifle a giggle. Water Tribe men certainly were striking… but one look at Kaisun's drawn face reminded her of the grim and potentially dangerous night they had ahead.

An arm tucked behind her back when she addressed them, like some Fire Nation general, "How many of you are waterbenders?"

Out of the thirty men gathered there, only four raised their hands. ___Really?_She thought. But this was the Northern Water Tribe! Waterbenders were supposed to be as thick on the ground as.. well… snow! Maybe most of the benders were women and not allowed to fight. "That's all the benders you have?"

"Yes," replied one man with a drooping mustache who was standing next to Kaisun," Many of our waterbenders are women, or too old or young to be risked in this fight."

Now wasn't a time to chastise the outdated Northern gender roles, though frankly it was taking everything to keep from fuming at them to let the women join. It would be a moot point, however. If they did run into danger, they wouldn't be prepared to deal with an all-out brawl if all they had received was training in healing.

"What about Master Merak?" one of the wolf-helmeted warriors shouted in a gruff voice.

Kaisun craned his neck and searched the crowd," Yes, where is he? Tok! You're his student, do you know why he isn't here?"

A boy barely marrying age stepped out of the crowd. He wore an oversized parka and had let his few, precious wisps of facial hair grow out in an attempt to look older. It looked like he had slept on a hedgehog. When he tried to furtively clear his throat Korra thought she was going to lose it. "My master apologizes for his absence. He's ___very_busy at the moment."

"Who's Master Merak?" Korra planted her gloved hands on her hips. Whoever he was, she didn't like his half-assed excuse for not participating.

"Our resident waterbending master," Kaisun explained," One of the best I've ever seen. Very odd that he isn't here…"

"…Uh-uh," she shook her head," No way." They probably wouldn't need him with her around, but that was beside the point. Even she understood that when your community was threatened like this, you drop everything to help- even if it's standing around in a snowbank for a few hours. Who in Koh did he think he was, just opting out? If this Merak's acne-ridden student could take the effort to show up, surely he could, too. Her eyes narrowed and her voice edged in steel," Where's this guy live!"

Tok looked as if he had swallowed a badgerfrog. This lady was terrifying! And attractive, but just made her even more terrifying. "That way…" his hand shook as it pointed past where the villagers' boats were moored," The hill…next to the cove. Polar bear-dog's carved on his door. Can't miss it!"

Before she could glower at him some more, he had slipped back into rank. Korra placed two fingers on her lips and whistled for Naga. A bellow in the distance let her know that she was on her way. "Kaisun, place your warriors in a circle around town and space the benders in the middle between the buildings."

Using a jolt of airbending, she rocketed onto the polar bear-dog as she lumbered past. "I'll be right back!" she roared. _And I won't be alone._

Naga tore up the snow along the shore. It was a bit of a run between the center of the village where the meeting house was and what appeared to be the hill where Merak resided, but Korra muttered the whole way. She was probably overreacting. But until they knew what the cause of these abductions was, she needed the entire community's support- particularly someone as deeply-rooted in it as a waterbending master. As the jutting roof of a lodge appeared in the distance, Korra gripped Naga's reins and leaned down in preparation to gain even more speed (she'd break that jerk's door down!)… but then tugged hard. She pulled on them as if they were about to run into some unseen wall. It was the anxiety. The knots had suddenly seized her stomach again, like someone was climbing up her insides. Both she and Naga were powerless to stop the water that torrented through her ears and the bleak, cold sensation that went from her toes to the tips of her fingers. ___Aang! Help me Aang! _Her spirit screamed- and for a second she thought she heard his assuring voice, though obscured by several feet of water. It frightened her because now her limbs felt tangled and too frozen to bend. Something pulled her down… down…

The scent of burnt spice filled her nose. Naga let out a worried, whistling 'vween'….The tide went out in her mind again, just as quickly as it had come in. When everything had cleared up, she was staring at a modest stone lodge situated safely on the crest of the hill with a horseshoe-shaped piece of beach below it. On her left, a few yards away, was an oblong mound of rocks with two fat sticks of burning incense shoved into its head- the source of the sweet smell. A pile of gray ash indicated that they had been going for some time. It was a Northern Water tribe grave. But what was it doing outside of the burial ground? It made her more unnerved.

"So Merak likes having a dead guy on his front lawn," she muttered," Creepy."

Korra wiped cold sweat from her brow as Naga padded up to the house. There was a faint orange light in the window that made her realize how dark it was getting. The sun had dipped below the western sky and the last few waves of pink were being ebbed away by the blue. She slid off of the saddle and sighed, "Well. Let's get this over with, grab him, and get back before anyone misses us."

The door of the lodge was made of ice and carved with the stylized face of a snarling polar bear-dog, just like Tok said. A few brusque shoves proved it to be locked, however. _What a pity_, she thought as her left fist reared back, wreathed in flame, _it was really a lovely work of art_.

The avatar's furious fists pulverized it to melting shards in a few punches. Her boots crunched as she stepped over the debris-strewn threshold into the dwelling. It was cozy, with painted hides stretched along the walls to keep the wind out. Warm, too- much warmer than the meeting house even with its crackling fire. The smell of the same incense from the grave outside mixed with the heat and made her a bit drowsy… It reminded her of her parents' house in the Southern Water Tribe, down to how meticulously clean her mother (tried to) keep the floor. After a moment of fond reminiscing, though, she recalled why she came here and pulled back a sealskin partition a few feet away…

"Are you Merak?" she asked curtly. A flickering oil lamp illuminated the back of a man seated in meditation. He was garbed in a dark-colored tunic and half of his hair was gathered up into a short wolf tail. It was still dark. She had been expecting some crusty old guy. However, few abstract swirls of shimmering gray-pink snaked along the skin of his neck and right ear.

The man gave no reply.

Korra's hands balled into fists again. The stick of incense in the ivory holder was new, so he couldn't have been___that _deep into meditation.___That _was more important than helping her protect the town? Rescue those children? "Master Merak, I presume?" she sneered in a tone deriding the stiff, Northern formality.

Again, he didn't stir.

"HEY!" the young woman bellowed, her cheeks burning with rage, "What gives, huh? I have been traveling for a WEEK to get here and help these people. You can't even walk ten minutes to go and help them. Their___children _are missing- or are you so caught up in your 'meditation' to even care? Your village needs you, you inconsiderate jerk!"

"Ah Avatar. You're just as I remember- your conviction only surpassed by your rudeness."

That voice. How could it be that voice? The same baritone awash with grit and charisma that terrorized her on the Republic City radio and stalked her nightmares. That one greeting knocked the breath from her lungs so that she could only scantly whisper," Amon?"

Notes:

-The Tyra village meeting house is based off of a traditional Haida plank house.

-Traditional Inuit graves are typically shallow due to permafrost conditions most of the year in Arctic climates. So they covered their dead in a hide and pile rocks in a mound on top of them.


	3. The Talk

_Whee, chapter three. Slowly but surely folks! The feels will build- and here's our man to prove it. No anthropological/history notes this installment, just angst, snark, and a whole lotta bending (elements, not bodies). Note that I had to rewrite half of this chapter from memory because Open Office went belly up on me._

_[Chapter Rating: T- for language and implied sexual molestation]_

"He's dead," the man the village called Merak declared gloomily,"Just like you wanted."

It couldn't have been! A Fire Nation freighter discovered the bombed out wreckage of an Equalist boat in the Mo Ce Sea. They found nothing but scraps of his and Tarrlok's clothing, covered in blood and gore. Obvious conclusion. But it wasn't enough: A one year manhunt with an army of United Republic soldiers and hundreds of bounty hunters combed every corner of the four nations for any evidence that the bloodbending brothers still lived or their wickedness had been purged from the world. Nothing. No sign at all of either for three years. It had only been a few months since Amon ceased haunting Korra's thoughts altogether and she could sleep in peace without that voice mocking her and the spectral visage of his mask smirking down at her.

Yet there he was not five feet in front of her, casually seated in meditation. Years of convincing herself and the world that he was dead, just to have him thriving in the Northern Water Tribe. He terrorized an entire city and hurt the ones she loved, then completely escaped justice! It made her sick.

No. It made her angry. Livid. Without a second thought her hands summoned up infernos that burned an enraged blue. "You bastard!" she cried, "You monster!" With a steep jolt of her hands she unleashed a deluge of fire on him. She would finish the job.

Three years of civilian life had done nothing to dull Amon's lightning reflexes. The most minute movement of his hand was able to muster a twisting braid of water from various vessels around the lodge. It spread into a liquid wall then froze to meet the Avatar's flames with a mighty hiss of steam. All of a sudden Korra couldn't see anything. Quickly, she harnessed a breeze from the open front door to clear the building before he could escape- but the steam just kept coming. He was still there.

"I don't want to fight you Avatar," that monstrous voice called out from the thick billows of vapor. It didn't have a hint of derision or irony to it, but Korra kept hosing cold air into the cloud.

She spat back," Too bad!"

Behind her she could hear the crackling of forming ice. Amon had replaced the door, blocking off her source of cold air while his obscuring fog continued to billow out from some unseen source. The humidity was making her skin glow with sweat. "What happened to the Avatar's mercy? The unending compassion for all living things?"

"You've got me confused with some other Avatar," she grunted as she swept the fog in front of her with an exploratory kick, "And you're a dead man." It occurred to her to fight water with water, so she concentrated on all of the little particles in Amon's screen of steam. They would collect together into a stream and then she would pummel him into a heap.

But she was met with resistance. Every time she tried to focus the fog, he would disperse it again. She pulled, he pushed. She condensed, he evaporated. Their skill was evenly matched. It surprised her that he hadn't resorted to his usual dirty tricks, like the last time they had met. With every ounce of bitterness she called out into the fog, "Why don't you bloodbend me, Amon, huh? That'd finish things pretty quickly, now wouldn't it?"

Wait and listen, Bei Fong always told her. She tried to use earthbending to pinpoint where he was from his footfalls… but she couldn't sense any. It was like he was floating in the fog. Like a propeller, she whirled herself around in a wheel of jabs and kicks. Eventually she'd kit him! He had to be there still, otherwise how did everything stay cloaked in steam? But alas, every barrage of her limbs turned up nothing but toppled furniture or shattered brick-a-brack.

"Amon!" she screamed in frustration. Mastery of the four elements and she couldn't find ONE bloodbender in a small house," Noatok! Merak- whatever the hell your name is now! Come out and FACE ME!"

Out of nowhere hands clamped onto her arms near the elbow and slid them behind her back in a painful double hammerlock. Korra writhed and kicked to pull herself free, but Amon just torqued her arms even more. "Listen," he rasped explosively in her ear. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. It felt so strange," I don't do that any more. And for the last time, I don't want to fight you. Have you failed to notice that I haven't bloodbent, chi blocked, or even so much as attacked you during this little exchange of ours? If I wanted to incapacitate you I could have done so the very instant you walked into this house."

Feeling Amon so close brought back too many dark memories. Those thick, unyielding arms transported her to that night on Aang Memorial Island when she was certain he would take her bending away. So scared, so innocent to think that he would come alone and fight fair. But Amon had no honor… she took in a deep breath and bellowed fire as far as her neck would twist in any direction. The lock on her arms persisted, but he had to arch his head back to evade her oral pyro-blasts.

When that didn't work, she stamped flames from her feet. Years of work and mastery of forms and she had resorted to looking like a petulant toddler who just had their favorite toy taken away. Why wouldn't he let go? What force was keeping him out of harm's way?

"_Korra_."

"LET GO OF ME AMON!" she wailed. But that wasn't his voice. It was too caring, too serene. Instantly she extinguished herself," Aang?"

"_Korra, you need to stop. He's telling the truth, he doesn't want to hurt you. You've cleansed the world of the crimes he committed as Amon the Equalist and he's already received his punishment. Forgiveness is more powerful than punishment, Korra. Let go of your hatred and forgive him_," her past life urged her gently. He didn't appear, so she wondered if it was a figment of her tired mind.

"Aang! He-"

"_Korra. Stop. _Trust him." The airbender's voice was firmer than ever. Other than the flashbacks of Yakone's trial, he had never heard him sound that stern.

Aang wouldn't steer her wrong. He sent wisdom in the most obscure ways, but in the end she always unlocked some grander truth. Somehow this wicked man served some greater purpose, despite her desire to pulverize him into lizard crow meat. Fine. She went limp in her opponent's lock. "All right, whoever. Let's talk."

"Finally, some good sense," Amon sighed in relief. But he didn't let go. On the contrary he tightened his hold one last time and growled in her ear," Do you promise to cease your pointless attempts to incinerate me? … _And_ stop destroying my house?"

That last part. It almost made her smirk. She conceded," I swear on my past lives that I won't try to burn your face off… for now."

That seemed to be good enough for him. All at once the hammerlock was relinquished and the fog liquefied and lazily streamed back into what pots hadn't been broken. The place looked like a typhoon had rolled through. She turned to her left to see Amon picking up pieces of paper that had been strewn about during their scuffle. They had to be important with how delicately he gathered them.

It occurred to Korra that she had only ever seen his real face once, albeit rushed and at a distance before he dove into the bay. Really nobody had gotten a good look at him, which made drawing up his wanted posters all the more difficult. Perhaps the greatest change from what she remembered was also the most amusing. Silvery-pink, rippling courses of scars traced the crest of his right cheekbone, down the hollow of his face, and over the side of his broad chin to meet others that dappled his neck. A small sinew-bound braid tried to cover the large chunk of earlobe missing. Souvenirs from the explosion, no doubt. The irony made her smirk.

If Tarrlok's story was to be believed, then Amon was over forty years old. Other than a few shots of silver that flecked his temples and some tired grooves under his gray-blue eyes, there was little indication of it. He was still in very formidable form. And not entirely unpleasant to look at, she admitted. The most unnerving thing was seeing him dressed like a water tribesman. It was easy to hate someone in a uniform; they embodied discomfort, giving up individuality, losing any sense of a past or tradition to utilitarianism. In Tyra he would have stuck out like a Fire Nation gunboat. Since only young men and those in deep mourning wore their hair short, he wisely chose to grow it and tie it back into a shaggy wolf's tail. He had traded in his usual black and red for an indigo shirt, a belted gray tunic, and dark trousers. Traditional Water Tribe designs ran along his garments' hems, which made Korra wonder how he got them. Did he steal the clothes? Typically clothes were made by women, so had he tricked some poor local girl into marrying him? Just how much was he taking advantage of these poor people?

Then the pieces fell into place.

"Where are they Amon?" she hissed," What did you do to the missing kids?"

He glared at her from across the room. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Avatar."

"Oh please! I know you took them- it's obvious!" It was the perfect cover- the harmless waterbending teacher. The inability to track them had to be because Amon used bloodbending to literally lift the children out of their beds. That had to be the worst thing she could think of a person doing. She felt the urge to blast him with flames again, give him far worse than a few scars on that handsome face of his.

Worse was that he appeared completely unaffected by her insinuations. In fact, he put his stack of papers down and gathered the necessary components to make tea. "And why would I abduct my own students, exactly?" the fugitive asked haughtily.

"Because you're a sick bastard!" she found herself shouting without really considering his question. Her hands ignited with a boost of angry adrenaline.

"You know, you're doing an awful job of trusting me," he rolled his eyes and sighed. A stream of water that just about made Korra go berserk floated into a pot on the hearth.

"Why should I?" A ripple of flame danced on the crest of her fist threateningly.

"Because I heard what Aang told you. About forgiving me." His voice had lost any trace of its usual stiff formality.

A full minute of silence passed between them. They spent it staring at one another in a frigid blue sea of confusion, paranoia, and bitterness. Korra tried to figure out some way that he could have guessed. Nobody could just _drop in_ on a conversation from the spirit world! Amon wondered why he even bothered and was the first one to break the pathos. "Sit down," he ordered as if drilling new chi-blockers,"We're going to talk. And if you're so overcome with rage, use some of it to heat this water faster."

She gave him one of her signature pouty sulks. The nerve of him, ordering her around like some sort of subordinate? If he wanted heat, she'd give it to him! A whip of flame darted from her fingertips towards the pot of water. It danced blue around the pot and nearly evaporated all of the water within. Amon's fists clenched at her petulance, but he simply floated more water into the vessel instead of striking out. As infuriating as the woman was, he was determined not to let his emotions get the best of him.

"This is stupid," she kicked at a shard of crockery on the floor and turned towards the door. There wasn't a trace of light filtering through the ice. It was past sunset, she'd been gone far longer than intended. Suddenly she was a flurry of activity. "I need to be with the villagers. For all I know that thing's attacked again and took any kids left in town."

"It hasn't. It won't attack until after midnight."

There was an audible pop as he unplugged a jar of tea, then carefully spooned in crunchy green leaves. He was so careful and deliberate, Korra thought she might burst out laughing- particularly when he pulled a pocketwatch from his tunic. Truly this was an evil mastermind, he even plotted his tea! She narrowed her eyes," How do you know that, exactly?"

He raised his concentrated gaze for a moment, "Because I watch and I pay attention, Avatar. When the spirit began its attacks I was one of the first the village turned to. I spent a week of nights out in the oxgoat pastures taking note of where and when everything happened. I have not slept at night for two weeks…" She wasn't sure if he was bragging or berating her at this point, so she bit at one of her nails until he said something useful. "…from what I've gathered, this spirit only has enough energy to pass between the worlds once per day. When it attacks at night, it is forced to wait until midnight, when that day is technically over."

"Great, so you seem to have this all under control, why don't you get all of the children back yourself?" she lilted sarcastically.

"Try as I may, I am unable to get to the spirit world. You are, however. Once we know what we're dealing with, it can be killed once it crosses over to our plane."

Crossing the planes wasn't too daunting for her, particularly this close to the winter solstice- but the idea of working with Amon disgusted her beyond comprehension. _We?_ Her hands rested defiantly on her hips. "And what's keeping me from flying to Rudderhead to telegraph the United Forces and tell them you're here? Or telling the villagers who you really are,_Merak_."

"Any shred of intelligence in that pretty head of yours, foremost," he retorted, "You _cannot_ be that selfish, Avatar. Would you really sacrifice a village's children- its safety just so you can have revenge? Besides, if you reveal me to the others, I'll have no choice but to flee and take the remaining information about the spirit with me." A faint smile played on his lips as he bended the steeped tea through a wicker strainer into two cups. Gambits were his specialty and soon enough she would work out that she had to play along. In the meantime… "Tea?"

As much as she would have killed for a cup (considering how heavenly it smelled), she was determined to figure out a way to resolve the abductions and still unmask him (again). To her advantage, _he_ needed _her_ to get to the spirit world- but she needed his information since- on the most part- she was in the dark. If she revealed him as Amon, then he would potentially flee, even if the villagers kept him locked up, even if she took his bending. She wouldn't underestimate him, just as he wouldn't write her off, despite his constant jeering. They were stuck together. She gave a deep, shoulder shrugging sigh and trudged over to accept the tea. Thankfully, he had set it on the table so she didn't have to close a distance of three paces to him- which was as near as she'd allow him to get. She could feel his eyes taking her all in. It made her wonder if he did this all the time when he wore the mask.

"Thanks," she mumbled spitefully. It was a smoky, grassy green whose smell reminded her of Air Temple Island in the autumn after a long rain. The steam collected on her nose and warm waves radiated down her throat when she took an experimental sip. She had to admit it, he did know how to make a cup of tea. "This is pretty good," she added in a dismal way, as if they were at a funeral and she was commenting on the aesthetic state of the corpse. Which reminded her…

"Who's that buried in front of your house?"

From her new vantage point she could see the lines furrowing in his brow as he gathered the words to answer. For a second she was expecting something melodramatic like 'who do you think?' or 'my hopes for equality'. "Tarrlok," is what he eventually croaked into his cup.

Korra felt her blood leaden. Was this the punishment that Aang spoke of? The brothers had escaped the law, but was living with guilt enough for Amon? Sure, Tarrlok was a jerk. He was manipulative, vain, and underhanded. There were times when they were serving on the task force that she could feel his eyes undressing her- even when he was just sitting at his desk signing paperwork. And when he abducted her? What vile things had he done while she was knocked out? But, it was also his sad story. that enabled them to bring down the Equalists by cutting through Amon's enigma. Tarrlok was awful- but he wasn't evil. "I'm sorry," she murmured, barely audible above the fire and the wind outside.

"No you're not." He was obviously still stricken with the loss, even after three years.

"Yes," she affirmed," I am. I'm sorry about your brother- he didn't deserve what happened to him." In her mind Tarrlok would have been eventually pardoned, maybe found redemption in a life outside of Republic City. It was Amon that deserved to be de-bended and be buried, unmarked, on some distant shore. Or have his mangled head hung from the prow of a United Republic flagship.

"I tried to save him. I nearly drowned pulling him to the surface," his eyes betrayed the placid tone in his voice. The fight against showing his humanity to her continued. He turned his back to her once more and sat on a caribou hide near the fire. His hands both clasped the cup, which he hunkered his burly body over.

"But how did you survive and end up here? There's no way the currents took you all the way up here from the Mo Ce." Now she was curious. She popped down with her tea on a nearby hide.

His face was vacant. "I'm not willing to discuss that right now."

But she was determined! Her steeled face cracked into a tiny, appeasing smile, "Like the Air Nomads say, no time like the present."

He gave a huff of rueful laughter, then rolled his storm-colored eyes, "And much good _that_did them."

"Fine! That's enough for me!" she rose to her feet with a scowl. Despite the intense heat, she downed the rest of her tea with an inelegant'_quoat!_' then threw the cup against the earthen floor. It shattered not far from the door. "It's been a real treat, but I'm not getting anywhere just chatting it up with you. I'm going to go look for those kids, so just try to stay out of my way… _Merak_."

"Always good to see that you're taking full advantage of your destructive capabilities Avatar. Care to burn my house down while the muse moves you?" he grumbled from the rim of his cup.

With a mischievous smirk, she took him up at his offer and produced a gust of air from her hands. It whirled around the room like a boomerang until it zeroed in on a shelf that laid undisturbed by their earlier spar. A carved soapstone oxgoat plummeted to the ground and broke into several pieces. Amon was not amused. "I carved that, I'll have you know."

"Great, you'll have enough time between now and midnight to carve another. Thanks for the tea.," she smirked. With a triumphant tug, she raised the hood of her parka over her hair and prepared to go join the village watch… Except that there was a door in the way again. _No matter_, she thought, and blew the whole thing to vapor with a blast of fire. Naga ran to meet her, tail wagging slovenly. Before she hopped on, she peeked inside the lodge to add, "And your door's broken again!"

The last thing she saw as she hopped onto Naga's back was Amon giving her the most poisonous stare. It made her laugh- which was odd because prior to their encounter she was afraid of him. Like a child who dreaded some bogeyman. But how could she now? She'd seen his face, the manner in which he kept his house, how he made his tea, his carvings- she had seen him smile and frown within a few minutes of each other. Amon was human now. And humans were nothing to be frightened of… but she had to remind herself that it wasn't a human that awaited her in the dark tundra.


	4. The Grave

_Thanks for reading thus far, folks! Stuff happens in this chapter. Stuff which leads to other stuff… whoo._

[_Chapter rating: T for language, abuse, and a scary bit or two_]

Someone had gotten the well-meaning, albeit misguided idea to give Jinora a spear. Considering the situation it was probably an act of charity, but it confused her to no end. Where precisely did it fit with Northern Water Tribe mores, since that she was A. a teenager and B. a she? Besides, her father's training had been a bit vague on the use of spears… So she amused herself by twirling it around like a wheel and buffeting balls of air off of it- until she lost her grip and the point of the weapon became lodged in a nearby house.

Perhaps that was why her father never condoned spears.

Thankfully, Korra and Naga came galloping back into the village before the homeowner could be alerted. The polar bear-dog seemed in fine spirits, but the Avatar had a sour look on her face from her encounter. Jinora produced an air scooter and zipped out towards the meeting house to meet her. "Korra!" she pulled up alongside the boisterous beast," Korra, did you talk to the waterbending master? Did you give him a piece of your mind? You were gone for quite a while."

Naga skidded to a halt into a snowbank, which jolted her rider forward. Korra donned an acidic glare. "Yeah," she growled," I talked to him all right. And I hope he stays in his stupid house and out of our way."

Upset Avatars were nothing to trifle with. Jinora's lips curved into a silent, understanding 'oh' as she let her scooter dissipate. Maybe some good news would cheer her up. "I've done some more reading Korra. And I asked around amongst the village elders. I have a few ideas of what we might be dealing with."

"Really?" It seemed to do the trick. Korra's hair-plumed head popped up from Naga's thick back, where she was loosening the harness. "What d'you figure it is?"

"Well," she began in her usual idiom. For once, Korra didn't roll her eyes or phase out to think about having fried octopus for dinner or Bolin's biceps. In fact Jinora was a little unnerved by how attentive she was being- but no matter, she flipped to a page in a raggedy-looking book she had with her. "One possibility is Ookpik. She only comes out at night and she's the most active around the Winter Solstice- and she flies so that explains why there aren't any tracks. And according to this she only eats fresh meat…"

"But?" Korra asked with raised brows. There was always a but.

"But, Ookpik only eats animals. It might explain the missing oxgoats, but she's never been recorded humans."

Korra wondered why Jinora even bothered bringing her up in the first place. After loosening Naga's riding harness a notch, she folded her arms expectantly, "Well, what else did you come up with?"

"Well the other idea I had is a Guei…"

"A hungry ghost?" It was true, she knew very little of the spirit world- but someone had to be living under a badgermole to have never heard of Guei. They were the fodder for fireside scary stories the world over.

Jinora was pleasantly surprised. She nodded and leafed to another page in the book that was dutifully marked. "That's right. I asked if anyone had died recently of unnatural causes or young, you know, the sort of thing that would make a Guei think it had unfinished business…"

Korra's mind could only focus on one possibility: Tarrlok. He wasn't buried in the cemetery, he died just aged 37 (which was quite young, particularly by Water Tribe standards), and if anything was an unnatural death. Being mysteriously exploded on a boat with leader of a terrorist resistance movement who turned out to be a long-lost sibling wasn't exactly common… Spirits, any of them could be a valid reason for wreaking havoc on the living. (And she could hardly blame Tarrlok- she'd be angry too if she was buried within a fartbend of Amon.) Thankfully taking care of a Guei was an easy proposition, although it would mean having to tell Jinora about Amon…

"I think I know where our Guei is buried."

"Where?" the young airbender snapped her book shut.

"There's a man buried up near the cove by Merak's house… he's a.. uh… suicide," she lied. Suicide or a violent end guaranteed a hungry ghost, decent without getting too deceptive.

Once again, Jinora's mouth went slack from the inconvenient topic of conversation. Self-harm was still violence, which made any proper Air Nomad queasy. "All right," she confirmed unsteadily," I'll go to the villagers for offerings and I'll meet you at the gravesite."

But that would mean that she would find out about Tarrlok _and Amon_, Korra fretted. She wouldn't understand the situation. She'd worry. After all, the last time the girl had crossed paths with Amon she was bound and gagged like the rest of her family in the converted remains of the arena, about to have her bending taken away. How would she react to knowing that dark blight on her childhood was still alive? It wasn't worth the risk. "No! Not…"

She started again after a moment of internal strategy. "I want to take care of this myself. Guei can be jumpy, after all."

Jinora started to flip through her book to verify this. Korra gingerly laid her hand onto the musty pages, "I need you to stand guard at the cemetery. What if I'm wrong and it's not this guy up at the cove? We'd cover two possibilities, smarter that way!"

The teenager's eyes narrowed suspiciously. It did make sense from a tactical standpoint, but Korra was acting odd. "I still think it would be best if I came with you…"

With her back to the figurative wall, Korra became irate, "Just do it, all right Jinora? We're much better off this way so we don't leave one side completely open. You can take a few of Kaisun's warriors with you if you're _scared_."

That was probably Korra's smartest tactic. Instantly, Jinora puffed herself up in her own defense, These days she was desperately trying to prove herself, particularly staking her claim as the eldest child and therefore _not_ a baby to be coddled or belittled. After all, she drove off an Equalist attack on Chief Bei Fong when she was ten! She can handle a simple haunting. "I'll go! I'll gather up some offerings and we'll meet back at the meeting house at dawn."

"Good. I can always count on you," the Avatar smiled. She was being completely honest despite her attempt to get rid of her- Jinora was the most level-headed of the Airbender children.

"C'mere," she opened her burly arms to hug her non-blood little sister. The teenager flapped her shawled arms around her and held on tightly. They were both scared- for each other and for what they might see at the burial sites. After some mild personal qualms, Korra decided to have Naga accompany her, since she had all four elements to protect her while Jinora only had one. If it came down to violence, Naga would get the job done.

While Korra went north door-to-door, Jinora rode west through the village and received a generous trove of offerings, though by the end her feet had become quite frozen and she had to accept a much-needed pair of mukluks from one of the households. Pride was an unnecessary luxury, her father always taught her. All ten toes, however, were not. They seemed to have been made for Avatar Kyoshi because they were far too big for her petite feet. With the aid of a few pieces of crumbled up paper from her journal they were quite toasty, though.

An old couple gave her a lantern, lit by a whale oil lamp. Naga clasped its handle in her teeth as she crunched along in the still snow. The moon shone off of its clean surface like a mirror, almost making the lantern irrelevant. But Jinora found its orange flicker comforting, particularly when she looked up into the vast vacancy of the inky night sky. Just staring up seemed to make everything colder. And scarier.

She passed a few members of the village watch who gave her directions to the cemetery, accompanied by warnings and concerns which she did not heed. _They would be nearby_, they promised. _They would check on her_. The closer she rode to the ominous-looking collections of stone at the base of a bluff, the more she wished she had taken them up on their offer. Piles of rocks, too random to be statues but too orderly to be natural marked the entrance. The graves were laid out in a spoked manner, radiating off of a central dais of stone, where offerings from the village sat. There were ashes in the middle. It made Jinora yearn for a fire, but they had seen little point in packing fire-making tools when Korra was capable of doing it instantly unaided.

"I guess this is where we should wait," she sighed and reluctantly hopped off of Naga, who gave her face a ferocious lick when she extracted the lantern from her jaws. As gross and cold as the drool was, it was comforting to know she'd be close by. The massive beast plopped down on the stone platform while Jinora busied herself arranging then re-arranging the offerings. First by scale, then by cost, then finally by category- which satisfied her. Naga watched the entire time with a drooling mouth and a tilted head. She began to whine after an hour of the tasty torment.

"No Naga," she chided after setting down a large piece of seal jerky next to… another large piece of seal jerky. There were six chunks of identical size and fattiness. _Maybe the spirits wouldn't miss just one_, she thought. And Naga did deserve a treat for protecting her…

She lobbed a fatty piece of meat at the polar bear dog, who snapped it up in her immense chops. As the gentle giant gnawed and licked her way through her chewy reward, the young airbender nuzzled into her belly and began to meditate.

The walk from the village to the cove reminded Korra how much getting around in the snow without Naga blew massive walrus chunks. While lugging the dozens of offerings for the Guei the mile between town and Amon's lodge wasn't a grueling feat, the constant cracking and sinking of her boots into the snow made the trip much more annoying. Finally she got fed up and flopped onto the ground with a loud crunch. She raised a raft of ice from beneath her and propelled it forward with controlled flails of her arms. The snow pushed along the sides backwards like a badgermole tunneling through earth- still tiring, but much faster than trudging through it. She sailed her craft along the stretch of coastal plain like a frosty river, with the moon shining benevolently above. It was waxing, about two-thirds full. Korra thought it looked like Yue was turning her face to whisper something to the stars. Maybe she was.

The raft slowed once the scent of incense filled her nostrils. She resisted. She had to. But again, spectral water filled her ears when she drew near Amon's dwelling. She couldn't fend off the psychic deluge.

"No!" she shouted at the visions of murky, cold ocean. It plunged through her veins and turned her blood to ice. This time, she felt like she couldn't breathe. Had she crossed into the spirit world and landed into some body of water? It didn't make any sense. She started to panic. She tried to waterbend, scream, kick, swim- anything that could get rid of the feeling, real or illusion. She even tried to visualize herself breaking through the surface, taking the crisp air into her lungs. But the episode continued, unabated. Though she willed her arms and legs to move, they remained limp and vertical, save for weak twinges that felt like futile climbing. Perhaps the most eerie thing was between her alternating, powerful feelings of fear and rage, there was also one of dark acceptance. This was supposed to happen.

Then she felt a hand. It clenched her around the meatiest section of her upper arm and pulled her upwards. Near her body she could feel water churning, as if someone was kicking, propelling them to the surface. Her shoulders were wrapped in a strong arm that braced her close to an equally solid body. It felt so warm in comparison to the frigid liquid surrounding them and warmer still when they broke through the water's embrace in a mutual chorus of hungry gasps.

Air filled her lungs and she was finally able to open her eyes.

"What in Koh was that display?" Amon stood above her wearing a gray anorak. His kinked eyebrows were knitted in confusion.

So much for relief. But Korra found herself too out of breath to lash out in anger. She slammed her head against the ice and covered her eyes with a jarringly dry hand. "Drowning," she panted.

He stared down at her with every ounce of annoyed perplexity that he could summon.

"I was drowning," she managed to spit out few beats later.

"No…" he shook his head," You were screaming like an idiot and flopping around like a dying fish." He didn't add that it looked hilarious. In a completely unearthly way.

"But I saw it.. I felt it." She knew it wasn't happening, but it felt like her body was really going through the various reflexes of drowning.

Amon's doubtful stare softened and he offered a hand to the collapsed Avatar in spite of himself. Similarly, she didn't have the energy to goad him, so she allowed herself to be hoisted vertical. His grasp felt identical to the one that fished her out of the water… She stared at him, baffled.

All of a sudden, Amon reminded himself of who this woman was and the encounter they had had just a couple of hours prior. He withdrew his hand from hers and tucked it behind his back- a reflex from his orating days. "What are you doing out here, Avatar? Trying to keep an eye on me?"

"No," she recoiled and folded her arms, "I came here to put Tarrlok to rest, we-"

Amon's bemused expression contorted into a snarl before she could explain. The scars along his jaw warped grotesquely.

"What?" he seethed. Any sympathy he had for the woman evaporated in a wave of indignation. She 'd touched a nerve. Probably the only one. The same hand that had helped her to her feet reached over and seized her by the hair. "Do you see that?"

His other hand was pointing to the nearby mound of stones. She let out a gasp of pain, "Let go!"

But his grip didn't loosen. The more she struggled, she more he tugged at her wolf's tail. "Do you see that, you inconsequential bitch! That is my brother's grave! He is _at _rest!"

Korra's instincts told her to firebend, but she still felt dazed from her third drowning episode. Besides, she knew he was doing this out of grief, even though the sharp pain from his hand wrenching on her head was bringing her back to the days of the revolution…

"I'm sorry!" she pleaded between grits of her teeth," I didn't mean it like that! I just thought…"

"What?" his eyes were full of bitter fire. After a glare that darted between her, the grave, and the spilled pack of offerings, he let go with a forceful shove.

Korra landed in the snow once more, this time with her scalp and jaw throbbing in warm pain. She stayed down, just in case. "With how your brother died, I thought he was a Guei. I brought all this stuff to put him to rest."

Amon was silent for some time. She figured that he would smack her around some more if she opened her mouth again, so she anxiously watched him stare at the mound of rocks. For someone who had lived a peaceful lifestyle for the last few years, he was certainly quick to anger. Did he treat his students like that?

He didn't begrudge her a hint of a glance when he stoically muttered," I'm sorry."

"What?" Korra wasn't sure if he had actually said it or it was just a mix of the waves and squawking sea birds. Either way, he had to be crazy to have gone from enraged to apologetic in three seconds flat.

He turned around and offered his hand again, as if she hadn't said anything," I'm sorry for hurting you… just now. Your plan was idiotic, but you didn't mean him any harm."

For a second, Korra thought she was in another trance. Did Amon just apologize? To her? True, it was about defiling his brother's grave and not overthrowing a government or causing permanent psychological damage to innocent people, but it was staggering to see that he was capable of saying those particular two and a half words. "Uhh…" Amon was opening his mouth to say something derisive, thankfully she was able to spit out," So your brother isn't a Guei?"

"I should say not," he scoffed, somewhere between offended and entertained," I think I'd know if my own brother had risen from the grave with a taste for human flesh. I buried him properly."

"Do you think what's taking the children is a Guei?"

Amon retracted his hand to itch at one of his sideburns, "Doubtful. Guei are savage. They devour their victims on sight."

"….I should probably tell Jinora that," Korra sighed, then picked herself up again. Another false lead. Just what was this thing?

"Ah- the young airbender, where is she?"

The absurdity of the fool's errand she sent the girl on made her smirk," She's at the cemetery, putting a Guei that doesn't exist to rest."

"_Damn it_," Amon growled and threw his hands out in irritation," Are you really that stupid, Avatar?"

She had had enough of this. Sure, she didn't think things through to the letter, but she wasn't nearly as big a fool as he thought. In her defense, she barked," Hey! We thought it was a good idea with what little in-"

"Has she had her first moon blood yet?" he interrupted.

"What? That doesn't have any-"

"Well has she?"

While Korra was hardly a prude, she didn't see how discussing Jinora's hypothetical period was any of his business. The more she thought about it, she realized that the young airbender hadn't yet started her monthly cycles. Girls matured much faster in Republic City, but Jinora was proving herself to be a late bloomer at nearly fourteen, probably because of her slight, stringy build. The revelation hit her like a waterbending tsunami.

"Oh no."

When Jinora peeked her eye open, the lamp was dying and Naga had fallen asleep. Some guard dog, she thought. The world was still as quiet and dark as when she had closed her eyes and cleared her mind. No sign of a Guei. No sign of anything, really- not even the two village watchmen whom she'd last seen standing guard on the crest of the hill. All of the offerings were untouched, even by animals. It was perplexing. Maybe she would investigate.

"Wake up Naga." She shook the polar bear dog by the thick roll of fat and fur on her upper back. It jiggled slovenly without so much as a tail thump from her. Jinora tried a variety of techniques: rubbing her belly, tickling her paws, wiggling seal jerky in front of her nose, even prying her eyelids open- which she knew she hated because Rohan always did it at home. Nothing stirred the snoring beast. It was like she had been drugged.

"Some help you are," she sighed. Naga burped in her sleep.

Jinora rubbed her eyes and pulled a small watch from a pocket in her saffron-colored jacket. Just after midnight. If she were home in Republic City she would be asleep, or at least reading classical romances under the covers. She decided that if she stayed put she ran the risk of getting sleepy, considering the hour. After a preliminary stretch of her weedy legs she took the barely-lit lantern in hand and set about exploring the cemetery.

Some of the graves looked ancient, dating back to even before Avatar Yangchen and buried so deep in snow that someone could walk over them without noticing. No one had come to tend them in years. Others seemed to be from the time of her grandfather and she wondered if a few of them had died in the service of the Water Tribe during the war against the Fire Nation. Further out into the field of burials she came upon newer and newer graves- one even appeared to be fresh with only the faintest dusting of snow upon its canopy of stones. She took in a deep breath and puffed a gust of warm air into her cold hands. It would be at least seven hours until sunrise- but even if it meant fetching some flint and tinder she refused to abandon her post. Besides, Naga was keeping her warm.

She turned around to whistle for the polar bear dog, but the animal's snoozing, shaggy form was no where to be seen. Jinora shook her head as if in a daze.

Naga was gone. Dead asleep on the stone dais one minute, completely vanished not five later.

"Naga!" the airbender shouted into the night in four directions. Nothing. Not even the sound of the harness clicking against her body as she ran. So she shouted even louder.

The wind replied back. It made her realize just how alone she was out there in the arctic night. Without Naga, without anyone to stay with her- well, it was common sense to get out of there. The Guei would see the offerings and be appeased… that is, if Korra hadn't dealt with him already. Her heart drummed out a panicked song as she frantically searched the landscape for Naga. She whistled, she called, she worried… Cold beginnings of tears inundated her soft brown eyes.

_Crack_. It sounded like grave stones being struck together. Maybe it was a raven, she desperately hoped. "Naga? Is that you girl?"

More little cracks, tumbling down onto more earth was what she heard. She created a boost from the air and elevated herself a few heads taller to ascertain where the noise was coming from. The cemetery was as still as ever. And no Naga. Shudders creeped down Jinora's back as she turned to float back to the platform where she had rested her glider. She was getting out of here.

A soft, pleading voice hummed through the burial ground. "Help me," it murmured.

What was that? Jinora took a deep breath to center herself. There had to be an explanation. She wafted a little bit higher on her air scooter and cried," Are you the Guei?"

"Help me," the pathetic, mewling voice repeated, louder. It sounded like a child no older than six.

"Are you the Guei? Or one of the missing children?"

"It's taken me," it seemed to confirm, "Help me please!"

For a moment, Jinora's heart fluttered with hope. Maybe the children were being held out here, where no one would think to look for them. But that hardly seemed typical for a Guei, a ghost that demanded instant nourishment and knew nothing of delayed gratification- which would be necessary to think about caching a snack for later. She hardened against her knee-jerk reaction to search for the voice's source and wisely proposed, "Let me go get my glider! I'll fly to town as fast as I can and go get help- we'll all get you out of here, just stay calm!"

But the voice in the dark wasn't satisfied. "Help me!" it screamed, shrill and resolute, "Over here, help me!"

"I'll be right back, I promise!" she thrusted her scooter towards the center of the cemetery with all the speed she could muster, as if invisible sabre-toothed moose lions snapped at her heels. Whether it was a child or a ghost, she needed to escape- come back with reinforcements- Korra, Kaisun, anyone. Every tiny hair on the back of her neck and arms was standing to attention. There was something about that voice, it was simultaneously pitiful and chilling.

The pile of stones and offerings grew closer and closer and she could see the slight orange outline of her glider propped up against a squat pillar. She prepared to bank a turn and grab it, then use the momentum to get her airborn. Just a few more feet. She could practically feel the wood and canvas in her hands.

Instead, she met large, dead black eyes, boney claws, and a bleeding, lipless mouth that gently whimpered in a child's tones," Help me."

Her scream echoed through the frozen air all the way to the sea.

**Author's Notes:**

'Ookpik' is the Inuit word for an owl, typically a snowy owl. FORESHADOWING.

I took a few artistic liberties with the 'Guei' or 'hungry ghost', a spirit that pops up a lot in South and East Asian folklore- but the concept is the same. If a soul isn't given proper respect, it will rise from the grave as an insatiable monster and torment the living. In this fic-canon it's something between that and a Catholic-style demon needing to be exorcized.

The layout of the Water Tribe burial ground was made up for atmosphere. Lol. See notes from Chapter 2 for more on burial customs.

The author will give 2,000 internets to the person who can guess what traditional Woodlands American Indian monster the individual at the end was based on.

The author feels really bad for getting rid of Jinora and Naga like this, but do you people want smut or not?


	5. The Matriarch

_Holy crow, the last chapter got some amazing responses! Thank you all SO MUCH for reading, it means a lot and I've been taking your feedback in stride. My intention was for this to be combined with the next chapter, "The Dream", but once I had gotten to this point I realized how long it was getting, even after edits. So sorry if this one seems a bit boring, the next one will be a doozy._

[Chapter Rating: K+? T-? Bingo?]

Pema had said on occasion that "nothing in the world travels faster than gossip" and by the time Korra and Amon had sprinted back to Tyra, the latest abductions were on everyone's hushed breaths. Four children, including Jinora had been taken and Naga was missing. A hunter had heard her scream and was the first to lay eyes on the grisly scene: offering pots shattered, a tipped over lantern, an airbending glider cracked in two, and her burgundy shawl torn to pieces nearby. Despite the signs of struggle there was no blood, only the teenager's footprints scuffed in the snow. He was followed by two watchmen who claimed to see her enter the cemetery but failed to answer her cries for help because they had shamefully fallen asleep.

Korra cut like a broadsword through the crowd that had gathered in front of the meeting house; Amon followed grimly behind her. Fat-smeared torches illuminated the dour villagers and cast an unearthly orange glow on her face. As the village leader, Kaisun had been given the unfortunate and potentially dangerous task of breaking the news. In his hands were the broken pieces of the girl's glider wrapped in her woollen shawl. "Avatar Korra," he tried to beseech in his usual formal weight, but she noticed the remnants before he could croak out the rest.

"Where is she?" Korra snarled. Her eyes were framed by taught lids and unblinkingly demanded an answer. The sight made Kaisun avert his gaze in reverence.

"I'm sorry," he offered the glider with a slight bow.

A quick sweep of the crowd prompted another livid question," And Naga?"

"Your polar bear dog is missing as well."

Everyone held their breath to see how she would react. Some were too grief-stricken to care, but for many the potential of wrathful Avatar was a terrifying idea. Would she level the town? Would she make the ocean swallow them whole?

Korra reached a hand forward and brusquely seized her friend's effects. The frenetic torchlight glinted off of tears forming in her eyes- though she showed no sign of breaking down. How could she be so stupid? Why did she leave her alone? What if she couldn't get Jinora and Naga back? She could never show her face to Tenzin again- not after losing his firstborn and one of the last airbenders in the world. And Naga, who she had raised from a plump little puppy and was her only friend until the age of seventeen... How could life go on without either of them?

But she had learned the hard way that curling up in a little ball to cry did nothing. It wouldn't get them back.

Korra's hands tightened around Jinora's glider, "I'm going to the cemetery... Don't wait up."

It had been three days since she last slept (aside from twenty-minute catowl naps here or there) but she launched herself towards the burial ground on a crest of ice that made rogue waves look like ripples on a puddle. She wouldn't rest until Jinora and Naga were safe, no matter how badly her body screamed for a reprieve. When she landed on the outskirts of the burial ground she became aware of how heavy her eyelids felt. How they burned when she looked out at the gleaming ice and snow. So great was her fatigue that it was several minutes of storming through the cemetery before she realized that Amon had followed her. Strangely, she didn't care. He wasn't of any concern unless he got in her way.

She examined the stone dias, the tracks in the snow, even the shards of broken pottery and the pickled fish (formerly) therein. Every grave was circled. Every offering was gawked at. After an hour of feverish scrutiny she realized that she had discovered nothing. Not a scrap of evidence. She was just going through the motions for the satisfactory illusion of making progress, when in fact she had no clue where to begin. Amon shadowed her silently the entire time like a stray dog.

He spoke up when she finally succumbed and sat down on the stone platform. "You're being horribly short-sighted again."

Korra's response took the form of a fireball lobbed at his head. He needed little effort to dodge, as the aim was much to be desired.

"There are nine children missing now and you're not even thinking about how to get them back."

She rubbed her bloodshot eyes before giving him an acidic glare, "What do you think I've been doing for the last hour? Knitting mittens?"

Amon sighed like a schoolmaster who had posed a simple riddle to his prized student, only to receive wrong answers. He approached with little sign of apprehension, "You're not looking _for_ the airbender girl, you're looking at what happened to her."

"She has a name, you know," Korra snapped," And shut up- I have been looking! If you're so smart there, Master Genius, why don't _you_ tell me where they are?"

"Well have you tried making contact with the spirit world?" he asked haughtily, a smirk barely twitching the end of his mouth," I would. But I'm not the avatar."

"No... I.." Excuses melted in her mouth like ice.

She wanted to kick herself for wasting time. While investigating the scene of Jinora's abduction was a shrewd decision, it was still time she could have spent in the spirit world getting some hard answers or leads. A trademark scowl cemented itself on her face: she was annoyed at this spirit, the lack of clues, and most of all at Amon for being right. She wanted to rip that smug look right off of his face and eat it.

She groaned and reclined backwards on the cold stone platform. Just for a moment, she shut her eyes and felt a deep, sweet heaviness. But her head nodded against the solid stone and bolted her back awake. Amon had moved. He was leaning on a pillar not three feet away. The sudden proximity made her nervous- particularly with him staring so intently at her. "Well?" he prompted out of thin air.

"I'm going back to the village," she muttered, then slowly pulled herself vertical. The soreness of her back and overall weariness made her feel like an old woman. And it harkened her back to that miserable morning after Mako and Asami's engagement party, where she had overindulged (as they said politely) on sake. Tenzin nearly fainted from the property damage.

"And after that?"

"I'll find a place where I can enter the spirit world."

"A very wise plan," he praised dryly.

But Korra wouldn't be patronized. When he offered to ferry her back to town she spitefully declined. It was true, she was tired and it was a typical, sub-zero Water Tribe night- but she had pride to keep her warm. Besides, she still didn't trust him: why would he help her find Jinora and the children when he knew very well that once they were safe she would reveal him again? Surely, was following her just to sabotage when the moment was right.

The long walk back to the meeting house gave ample time to consider all of the angles by which he'd ruin her. As well as how red Tenzin's face would turn when he heard the news of his daughter's abduction. She wondered if she should do the responsible thing and spend the day flying to and from Rudderhead to send a telegram. On the way she passed various members of the village watch, all wearing identical looks of pity and disappointment. It shamed her that she had failed them, but it also made her remember that she wasn't the only one who had lost someone.

When she finally stepped into the dark meeting house she swore she could hear every single muscle wail in agony. There was a bed made up by the fire for her: a thick blanket made from oxgoat wool and a feather-stuffed mat with her haversack set neatly beside it. Typically it was a place reserved for special guests and tonight she felt like she didn't deserve it. However, everyone else seemed to be out on patrol, so she didn't dare argue. For the first time in days she was able to take off her parka and boots (she had to stink to the Earth Kingdom and back!). She unfastened the hide duster from her waist, let her hair hang loose, and settled down on the warm, soft bed...

But Korra couldn't sleep. Despite luxurious accommodations and sheer exhaustion, her mind refused to settle down. Thoughts bounced around her head like a rabbaroo in heat. She tried innumerable positions, clearing her mind with meditation, and even got out of bed to do thirty push-ups in hopes of inspiring total collapse. But every time she was on the verge of drifting off her mind would explode in a storm of fear. Thoughts of Jinora and Naga, primarily. What were they going through? And the children- were they all being held together? Would the spirit discriminate between animal and human? The thought of Naga being some diabolic appetizer alone kept her up.

Even worse- she thought about Amon. In between worrying about the children and how she was going to bring them back she wondered what his motivations were now that he didn't have an army of fanatics backing him. On one hand, he was the calculating mouthpiece of a movement based on terror that was raised to be ruthless. Anyone with Yakone for a father was inevitably going to be cracked, body and soul. On the other hand, what if the loss of Tarrlok and his sharp decline from charismatic leader to human fugitive actually changed him? What if...

"What's the point?" she grumbled. Three hours of near-missed sleep, tossing, turning, and anxiety. No thank you, she thought. With a frustrated groan she sat up and wafted the blanket over her head in a convincing impression of an angry snowbank.

"Can't sleep?" a gentle, brittle voice asked from the other side of the fire pit.

Korra lifted her wooly veil and swept the bangs from her forehead. It was an old woman sitting in an oversized chair. She was downright ancient, but not as old as Katara, with the typical plump body and dark, lined face of a Water Tribe woman who had spent years surviving rugged landscapes and boatloads of children. Her white hair was elegantly braided and looped around a carved bone ornament in the shape of an orca seal. It looked like the creature was rising from the frothy wave of her hair. The richness of her voluminous blue dress, rigid posture, and abundant jewelry (including a sizable plug of silver in her withered nostril) told Korra that this was no ordinary housewife. An assortment of sewing tools rested in her indigo-draped lap- she was making a pair of mittens.

"Uhh... no," she confessed. Had she been there the whole time?

"I'm awake, too. Come sit with me, Avatar Korra," the elder put down her project and waved her over to the worn chair.

She slowly scooched around the firepit, sleeping mat and all. The old woman had resumed her sewing by the time Korra reached her. Quite frankly she was a little intimidated and didn't dare breach the silence. This woman looked fairly important.

"Are you hungry?"

Korra's dry lips cracked into a smile as any trace of apprehension vanished. She found that one of the best measures of a person's integrity was how willing they were to feed her. The answer was usually yes, of course- her well-muscled body demanded constant sustenance from all of the bending and training. A passionate "very!" was the cue for the old woman to languidly rise to her feet to fetch a few earthen jars. Korra decided to make small talk as she busied herself, "So, uh... you live here?"

"Yes. I'm Eska. I'm Kaisun's mother. It's my duty and my joy to take care of the guests of the village," she replied with reverent vigor. The way the corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled reminded her so much of Katara- her teacher, confidant, and gran-gran all in one. Just like her master, Eska had a surprising amount of energy in her old bones and was soon toddling about the platform making what looked to Korra like a five-course banquet.

"You really don't need to go through all this trouble," the Avatar protested. She offered her hands to aid the meal effort, but Eska sharply rapped them with a spoon. What little was left of her eyebrows raised in playful indignation, "Child, I have been making breakfast at this time for the last fifty years. It's not trouble, it's necessity! We cannot allow our daily routines to suffer because of some dark spirit, eh?"

Her appearance may have reminded her of Katara, but her logic was pure Bei Fong. Korra sat back down straightaway. After a mere fifteen minutes (with the aid of some creative firebending to speed things up, the only piece of help Eska allowed) she was tucking into a fine breakfast of crispy green sea bacon, fried eggs gathered from cliff-nesting sea birds, and roasted fish washed down with oxgoat milk. Save for a cup of tea, Eska ate nothing and left it all for the voracious young woman to dispose of. The generous spread and equally kind company almost made Korra forget about her troubles from the previous night. Not quite, though.

Eska noticed when she lost her high spirits. Around the fourth piece of sea bacon the young woman's face went limp and her eyes lost their focus. "I have full faith that you'll find them Avatar, once you've had time to reflect. And a little rest has never done anyone wrong."

With rueful expression, Korra looked up from her nearly demolished bowl, "That's the thing Eska, I can't sleep. You saw me over there- I couldn't even sit still for five minutes. I just can't shut my mind off."

"Well you do have a lot on it," she offered gently. The matriarch bowed her head and returned to sewing while Korra polished off another helping of eggs. At least her appetite wasn't effected by all this, though she worried that might abandon her as well. What if the time came and she was too weak to fight? The gentle pressure of a hand on her head temporarily paused her worry.

"So much chi blocked," Eska muttered as her hand methodically stroked the subtle landscape of the young woman's scalp. With a final, affectionate pat, she asked, "Would you like me to make you something to help you sleep, child?"

The idea that Eska was a waterbender, albeit a healer hadn't crossed Korra's mind. It made perfect, natural sense. She looked up at the elder in amazement, even though she had met countless others with her skills, "You're a healer, too?"

Eska took that as a yes. Once more, she rose from her chair to rummage around the room- this time for herbs held in an assortment of jars. She glanced owlishly over her shoulder, "Oh yes, I studied in the capitol under Master Yugoda- in fact, you and I have met before, Avatar."

In an effort not to offend her host, Korra tore through her memory trying to find some recollection of meeting Eska. It was difficult- she met people from all over the world and during times of conflict often en masse. The nervous expression on her face made the matriarch chuckle," Not to worry. I didn't expect you to remember. It was many years ago when I was a little girl and you were Avatar Aang."

"During the Seige of the Water Tribe?" Korra hazarded after putting the pieces together. Without help from the spirit world she recalled very, very little from her past lives, but there was something about her that seemed warm and familiar. "Then that means you've met my master, Katara!"

Eska had set the necessary reagents on the hearth, where a massive granite mortar and pestle waited. Five or six different plants- each more foreign-looking than the previous- were dosed into the vessel by her deft hands. The grinding sound they made was calming, like waves washing over a beach in pleasant weather. She smiled, "That's right. After the siege was over you came outside to play with us youngsters. We all got a turn flying on your glider. I was horribly scared, but you told me that I would be safe with you. You calmed me so much.. and we flew into the sky so high that my little brother looked like a flea on a polar-bear dog's belly."

Korra closed her eyes with a large, bittersweet smile. Despite the hard truth that she didn't have any memory of that bygone day, she could imagine what it was like: the blue skies that greeted them as they emerged from the long, scary night, the children roaring with laughter, the feeling of cold polar air rushing past their cheeks as they soared. A little girl's shrieks of excitement. The simple joy almost brought her to tears, like she had reunited with an old friend.

"The seasons move in circles, Korra. The young become old; the old die and become young again. The elements cycle. There are some people who are just destined to meet over and over as you go through the circle," Eska explained lyrically to the steady tempo of the pestle. It gave Korra the pause to think about all the things that carried over from her various past lives to her; Kuruk's swagger, Kyoshi's temper, Roku's good intentions, and Aang's hatred of injustice. The impatience and frustration that they all felt trying to harness the massive power and potential within them. It made her think about connections in her own life- how things came, went, then returned... Amon was one of those connections.

The mortar and pestle had stopped. Korra opened her eyes and looked up at Eska with new clarity. "Eska, where you here when A- Merak came here?"

"Yes I was," she affirmed after sprinkling the crushed herbs into a cup. Hot water followed them, then a generous stir which rendered the mixture into a murky, earthy goop. When she was handed the cup, Korra thought it looked more like pond scum than a sleep aid- though it smelled nice. "Drink all of it."

Easier said than done, even for an adventurous eater like Korra. She decided to quaff it all down at once. It was most definitely medicine, with an identity complex at that, since it changed flavors from grassy to briny to bitter as she choked it down her throat. Even after her mighty effort, a thick film of the green substance clung to the side of the cup. She looked at Eska pleadingly.

The old woman tutted, "All of it."

Korra grimaced, drew a finger around the inside of the cup, and tried to lick it off before her tongue knew what hit it. She failed. The foul sludge hung around in her mouth until Eska offered the last piece of sea bacon as a reward, and even then didn't completely leave. She didn't feel any sleepier, just more curious about how Amon arrived. And with an awful taste in her mouth.

"So what was Merak like when he first got here?" she repeated once Eska reclaimed her chair. Korra rested her head on the soft, pelt-wrapped armrest.

"Why do you ask?"

She tried to lie as minutely as possible, "I used to know him. In Republic City." Yeah, they were acquainted, all right. Her mind decided to flash back at that very moment to the Revelation- seeing Bo held hostage on the stage, seeing someone de-bended for the first time...

Eska peered over the armrest to study the Avatar's odd expression. "I thought as much. Yes, Merak seemed to know you- he was the first to suggest summoning you here."

"What?" It seemed suspicious. For what other reason than revenge would he try to get her up here?

"A week ago he stood before the village council and declared that you were the only one capable of ridding us of this curse."

"He said I was capable? Find _that one_ hard to believe," she muttered. The unamused stare Eska shot her stopped a bitter chuckle before it could fully form in her throat. Right. She recovered, "So then what was he like when he got here?"

The old woman knotted a thread, then shook her head, "Oh he was in awful shape. He and another man he said was his brother washed up on a little piece of ice early one morning. Two...almost three years ago. Burned head to toe on his back, barely alive, poor thing. Every bit of energy he'd had seemed to had gone to healing his brother."

Korra felt a sudden warmth flush her body, like Eska had just thrown another blanket on top of her. Her thoughts became more sparse, though still curious, "And he didn't try to heal himself?"

"No. And it was obvious that he wasn't a healer himself- his attempts seemed rather..." she searched for a more respectful word, "Improvised. His poor brother was completely passed out and died within a few days, even under my care. Made the poor man even worse, we thought we'd have to bury the pair of them."

Poor Tarrlok, she thought in spite of past transgressions- and to a certain extent 'poor Amon'. All that effort trying to save his little brother for nothing. Katara had taught her during lessons that energy spent healing incorrectly was as good as wasted because it didn't follow the correct chi paths or chakra gaps. Amon could have killed himself and he probably knew it. Korra let out a lionine yawn, then re-nestled her head on the chair, "So you healed him, Eska?"

"Physically. He's a very strong man, Merak. But he was very depressed, very angry. We offered to give his brother a proper funeral, but he refused. Walked out of here, still covered in bandages, buried him up by the cove. We all tried to stop him... but he was set in his ways. Broke Kaisun's nose for trying to stop him..." She chortled a bit, despite the injury to her son. Korra could only offer a slight smile with her eyes firmly shut. The herbs had taken effect and were gradually easing her into a deep, hard sleep. She was still somewhat awake- half in and half out- and to prove it she gave a drowsy "hmm" for Eska to continue.

She obliged with motherly pride, "After that he stayed here for a month or two. I healed him as much as I could- he has a few scars, as you probably saw- but he regained his strength quickly. Very quickly. Went out hunting a few weeks after he'd arrived and brought back a whole turtle seal. Every week since he's brought me fresh meat for my table, without fail. He's a good boy. And a month after that he gave his first waterbending lessons to the boys. Of course he never lets on, but I think he really enjoys te-"

Eska smiled. There, slumped on the armrest of her chair, was a sleeping Avatar in all of her drooling splendor. Out like a lamp. Without waking the young woman, she delicately eased her down to the floor, then placed a small cushion (usually reserved for her back during moist weather) under her head. Korra could have been in another country with how little she cared.

"Good. Just rest, you poor child," Eska cooed, stroking the sleeping woman's dark hair with a deeply-veined hand, "May your dreams show you the way."

Korra laid under her benevolent gaze in the warm glow of the meeting house fire. Her belly was full. Her mind only thought of comforting blackness that snugly wrapped her into unconsciousness... but it didn't last long. While her body rested happily, her mind embarked on a journey. It was faint and forgetful at first, like passing a stranger on the street, but soon her destination became apparent: Republic City, twenty-five years ago flickered into being...

**Notes:**

-Korra's sleeping place is based on Northwest Coast plank house etiquette- the more important you were, the closer to the fire you slept.

-In my headcanon Water Tribe members have piercings and tattoos, dammit. The Inuit, Inupik, and Northwest Coast tribes all have traditions of facial/body art and piercings, so... Hurumph?

-Sea bacon is a real thing! It's a Northwest Coast recipe in which seaweed is roasted with salt and oil until it's crispy, like green bacon. Sort of like roasted wakame offered in Asian Food markets (go try some, it's delicious!)

-Eska was totally one of the little girls in Katara's healing class in Season 1 of Avatar. She ended up in Tyra after she was married. (Headcanon, lalala)

-I have no idea what Eska slipped Korra. Probably MacGuffin's Magical Sleep Aid, guaranteed to bring on sexy, informative fever dreams. Stay tuned.


	6. The Dream

_Thanks for the follows and lovely reviews, everyone. As promised, this is a doozy of a chapter! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it._

[Rated L for LONG AS HELL. Also T+ for language and violence]

_Korra slept. Wrapped up in strata of woolen blankets at the base of the matriarch's chair, she was completely oblivious to the curse that had fallen upon Tyra. There was no evil spirit, no missing children, no abducted friends- just comforting shadow and numbness. Until the dreams bombarded her unconsciousness..._

The neighborhood on the west end of Republic City was really named Hilltop, but hardly anyone ever called it that. Thanks to the droves of Water Tribe immigrants that settled there not long after the founding of the city, it became jokingly referred to as the Northern Heights. It was even labeled thus on some police maps. It wasn't the worst neighborhood- most of the old and new citizens tried to eek out a comfortable, albeit peaceful existence, going with the flow like their ancestors had at the poles. On the other hand, as the years progressed, the quality had definitely wore down. The old-timers blamed city life for ruining the younger generation, who only seemed interested in pro-bending, the brand new dragontime music, and sneaking out at night to seedy clubs for dancing instead of practicing their waterbending.

One particular bar on the perimeter of the borough was the hub of goings-on: Ardnaa's Place. It was ill-lit, squalid, and women who patronized the cafe were advised never to sit down unless it was on someone's lap (and even then, those results varied). But it served up some of the best seaweed noodles and five-flavored soup that far between the poles, so locals flocked to its battered barstools every night until dawn. Its particular nostalgic scent cut through the smoke, grime, refuse, and bile of the streets and that's what brought the young man through its doors that night.

He wasn't old enough to shave and certainly not old enough to be wandering the streets alone. But orphans were a common sight in Republic City, particularly with all of the gang activity. The Red Monsoons culled the streets after dark for anyone unfortunate enough to be in their way. He had received several warnings since he stepped off the Water Tribe clipper that morning, but he didn't care: nothing rattled his nerves. Nothing could harm him... except maybe hunger.

Noatok sat down at one of the barstools and looked around- it was nothing like home. All he knew was seal oil lamps, walls of ice or hide, and earthen floors. He stared, bewildered at the patrons and when the waitress impatiently cleared her throat, he thought his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.

"Kid, are you gonna order something?" the woman spat and preened a hand through her bobbed hair. He stared. Was she really water tribe? Where had her hair gone? Was she sick? And she was in the strangest frock- it looked nothing like what the women up North wore. Strangest of all- she was pale. Obviously she was ill...

"Listen kid," she leaned her rouge-painted face over the bar to glare at him, "If you're not gonna order anything, make like a bumble fly and buzz off!"

Well she's awfully rude, Noatok thought, then began to dig through a pouch threaded on his belt. With a triumphant half-smile, he managed to fish out an ivory ring, which he sat on the counter, "Yes ma'am. A bowl of noodles, please." His voice quavered between the alto of childhood and an elusive, deeper tone it would hopefully settle into soon. It embarrassed him to speak.

The woman chewed on her lips in annoyance. She pointed at the ring, "This a joke, kid? 'Cause I'm not laughing."

Noatok sheepishly retrieved the it. Right. The sailors had mentioned that in the cities nobody bartered. With an annoyed huff, he pivoted on his stool and rose to leave._ Fine_, he'd kill some pigeons and find a rubbish heap to roast them on... some wonderful new life he'd started.

"Sakari, don't be a tart," a raucous voice down the bar chided, "Give the kid a break, he's obviously fresh off the boat. I'll buy him some noodles."

A rumpled-looking man a few seats down winked at him and grinned. The smile lines around his mouth ran deep and gave his face an easy-going cast. His black-brown hair was thinning on top, but he compensated with a jaw patched with stubble. Like many men of the Water Tribe, he was built solid and broad and looked even more so thanks to a tan and blue uniform that burst with buttons down his chest. "Siddown, kid," he beamed easily.

Noatok didn't dare turn down an invitation, particularly from someone buying him dinner. He laid his anorak down over the stool and silently sat. "Thank you," he bowed his head stiffly to the man, then offered him the ivory ring.

The uniformed man itched his jaw, amused, "Damn, you really are fresh off the boat. What's your name, kid?"

"Noatok," the boy replied. The man seemed nice, although contradictory. What was he doing, obviously belonging to some official force and looking so... casual? "And yes, I just arrived in the city this morning."

"Couldn't tell," the man chuckled. It was glaringly obvious, even to Noatok once he gawked around the bar some more. Barely anyone wore water tribe clothing. Some of the patrons sported variations of traditional hairstyles and a few had tattoos emblazoned on their exposed limbs, but no one looked nearly as... _folksy_ as him, for lack of a better word. He was clad from wolf-tail bound head to mukluk-ed foot in stereotypical Northern Water Tribe garments, which were too rugged-looking and thick for city life. Just like Sakari, the waitress, most of the patrons were paler than their polar counterparts- the olivey, ashen tone of those who barely saw the sun.

It was pathetic how much of a hopeful surge he felt once he noticed the abalone rings in his host's ears. The man reached over and ruffled Noatok's hair (much to his chagrin). "Don't worry Noa, everybody has trouble for the first few months. Just gotta get used to it!"

"Noatok," he corrected. He barely knew this man, after all.

"I'm Aumak," his jovial host pointed a thumb to his thick chest, "But everybody calls me Captain Mak, I run this sector's firehouse."

Sakari reappeared again, this time bearing noodles with an acerbic glare on her otherwise pretty face. She all but slammed the bowl on the counter in front of them, then returned to reading a magazine with a saucy portrait of Fire Lord Zuko on the cover. Noatok glowered right back at her until he caught a whiff of the briny, savory noodle soup and remembered that he hadn't eaten all day. He descended on them like a buzzard wasp on a piece of carrion.

"You should tell those parents of yours to feed you more," Aumak smirked, watching the teenager go at the food, "Otherwise you're not gonna grow a bit."

Noatok slurped up a long green strand, then replied, "I have no parents. I'm on my own."

It wasn't true. His parents were alive and well, but he could never go home. Yakone was a lying, manipulative son of a bitch who deserved any misery the spirits could foist upon him. He would never call that demon father again. There was regret though, for his mother and Tarrlok- they were merely victims, just as he was- but he just couldn't go back to that tainted place. Ever. Running away was an act of mercy. His mother and brother wouldn't see him grow up to become an instrument of Yakone's vengeance and he wouldn't give the man that satisfaction.

Aumak thoughtfully sipped a small cup of rancid-smelling amber liquid. He looked Noatok up and down, "Little young to be running away to the city, huh kid? What are you going to for money? For life?"

"I don't know," Noatok shrugged his shoulders sulkily, "Get a job, I guess. I know I want to help people." If there was one benefit Yakone's sadistic education gave him, it was the drive to never become him. He would make something of himself and spite the old man at the same time by using his gifts to better this strange, murky place.

"Well ain't you a breath of fresh air in this sewer of a town?" the fireman laughed earnestly, "Most boys your age want to be pro-benders or fly airships. I'm afraid you're going to have to find something a bit more specific, though. Plain helping people doesn't pay the bills, kid- just ask the Avatar!"

The Avatar. He didn't know how to feel about him anymore. It was difficult to undo all of the hateful doctrine that Yakone had spewed on he and his brother their whole lives- but he wasn't his tool anymore. What did he know of the Avatar? Well, he was an airbender, powerful... and if Aumak was telling the truth, then he helped people with his immense gifts- which meant that the man couldn't be _that_ bad.

Aumak continued to watch him curiously, like some sort of rare species at a zoo. He was definitely one of the most serious teenager boys he'd ever met. "D'you bend, Noa?"

"Noatok," he firmly corrected again, "And yes. My f- I've been drilled in waterbending since I was six." He knew better than to promote his knowledge of the _other_ form, even Yakone admitted that it was illegal. Besides, he hoped that he would never use that horrible method again. Even if life depended on it.

"Well then!" the boisterous man tousled his hair with a meaty hand again, "I think I've got a job for you. You're a bit on the scrawny side, but we're always looking for skilled waterbenders to join the force! Quite frankly, we like the benders from the poles better- you lot tend to be a lot more disciplined than the lazy bums the schools churn out around here."

Noatok momentarily narrowed his eyes as he smoothed his hair back into some semblance of order. Of course, the first offer of a job in the big city was received with a healthy modicum of doubt, "And what would I be doing, exactly?"

Aumak cocked a bushy eyebrow at him in a look that begged 'just how sheltered are you?' Granted, the North Pole wasn't exactly a few blocks over... "Til we get you trained up, not too much- but you'd be helping people, sure as spirits. Putting out fires, rescuing people from burning buildings- spirits, I put out a flameo of a blaze last night just down the street. Helped four people out."

"And do these fires happen often?" It was difficult for Noatok personally to believe that someone could make a living like that. After all, he had never witnessed a house fire at the North Pole... it was a little difficult for an ice house to catch on fire... unless someone really made an effort.

Suddenly Aumak's easy-going grin faded. The burly man looked out the bar's dingy windows towards the streets, "Unfortunately, yes. One of the problems with living in the city- fires spread real quick. The gangs don't help either. Lately the Red Monsoons and the Agni Kais have been stepping up their game. They demand protection money from the non-bending shopkeeps. Red Monsoons'll rough folks up if they don't pay. Agni Kais'll set fire to any places paying the Monsoons."

That seemed ridiculous to Noatok. So then what were the business owners supposed to do? Not pay and risk violence from their own people? A red flush of anger tinged his cheeks, "And the police don't do anything? Or what about the army?"

"No point," Aumak tippled the final bit of his drink back and made a less-than refreshed face. "Police raid the gangs, they just go underground. This city's littered with tunnels- those rat roaches can go to ground for months. And the army seems to have better things to do than protect non-benders. Can't say I envy the poor bastards, I thank the spirits everyday that I can bend."

By then it was screamingly obvious what he had to do. If there was one perfect way that he could piss on Yakone's legacy and make something positive of his life, this was it. Noatok's usually withdrawn face smiled up at the fire captain, determined, "I'll take the job, sir. I promise, I won't let you down."

_Without warning, the dream shifted. Korra tossed in her warm bed as the bar in the Northern Heights blinked away and a new scene took its place. It left her confused- that skinny little twerp was Amon? As critical as she was, dreams didn't lie. Particularly dreams as vivid and deep as these- which had to be the work of the spirit world. She abandoned her doubt and allowed immersion into another time that felt a little bit more familiar..._

Books littered his bunk. All sizes, all genres. Fire Nation military history and tactics stacked amongst Air Nomad chakra plates, which lay under a collection of love poetry from the court of the twelfth Earth King. At that moment, Noatok's nose was buried in a tome that chronicled the history of the Dai Li- who he found absolutely fascinating.

The stringy boy of fourteen years, fresh off the boat had grown into a twenty-three year old man. Nine years with the Republic City Fire Corps had honed him into a tall, sturdily built youth- even taller than Aumak (and he routinely gave the old man grief about it). City life took its toll as well: one of the first things to go was his wolf-tail. It had been shorn more out of practicality than fitting in- long hair was a fire hazard. He hadn't noticed his skin grow paler as time went on, but the unhealthy air and smoggy canopy over the metropolis tended to make everyone eventually turn ashen.

But Noatok had fought to retain his culture. Just like Aumak, he wore multiple rings of in his ears. Once he had saved up enough money, he went to one of the tattoo parlors near the docks and had his thick arms criss-crossed with networks blue-black designs. On his collarbone was a mark in the shape of a whale's tail fluke- just like he had seen on other men from his village. While the designs were always hidden underneath his utilitarian uniform, they gave him a great deal of comfort. Unlike the other young water tribe men in Republic City, he remembered where he came from and resisted the temptations of urban life.

That night, the others had gone out dancing in the Dragon Flats district: they always invited, he always (politely) declined. They_ had_ tempted out him a few times by setting him up with girls- but his dates, no matter how enamored with his brooding looks at the beginning of the night, always left complaining that he was distant and aloof. City girls just didn't interest him, they were fabricated like Satomobiles and obsessed with cheap thrills. Besides, there were other, much better uses of his time, like training, reading, or taking silent nocturnal walks around the neighborhood- if he needed to get out of the firehouse.

For the last few minutes however, it had been anything but peaceful. The streets outside echoed with voices, combining in an impassioned muddle. Noatok put his book down and peered out the window- the neighborhood reverberated like a buzzardwasp nest. As he craned his head out to try to catch what they were saying, the alarm went off. The old brass bell clattered out its metallic knell as he donned his uniform, protective leather armor, and boots in a mad scramble.

He had been hoping for a reprieve: there had been fires every night that week, echoing the recent instability at City Hall with the untimely death of Councilman Sokka. Both the Water Tribe and non-bending communities mourned his loss while the crime bosses gingerly licked their chops and raised "protection" rates. With Sokka gone, Avatar Aang was the only voice in power willing to stick up for non-benders. So much for a city of harmony...

Noatok slid down the ladder by its poles, since rungs were for people with time to kill. The metal cleats on the bottom of his boots tapped out a nervous rhythm as he jogged to the common room, where his colleagues were darting to and fro like a school of spooked tuna trout. The firefighters scrambled to their various posts- some strapping on helmets, masks, and tanks while others hoisted equipment above their heads. Standing on a crate in the middle of the din, Aumak and his lieutenant, Aaki were marshaling the chaos into orderly teams. This had to be one flameo of a blaze.

"Mak!" the young man yelled to be heard over the harried voices, clamoring bell, and shuffle of equipment, "Mak! What's going on?" Years of exposure to smoke had given his voice a gravelly edge.

Aumak, now completely bald (but sporting a beard of respectable size), looked confused, "You haven't heard?"

Noatok shook his head- he had been up in the dormitory reading all evening.

Heaving a massive sigh, Aumak rattled something off in his lieutenant's ear. She nodded gravely. The middle-aged captain waded through the river of personnel that flowed into the engine house. One of his beefy arms clapped around Noatok's padded shoulders, "We need all hands on deck tonight, kid. I'm sorry, but Avatar Aang's dead."

The bottom dropped out of his stomach, "What? How?"

"Does it matter? City's got itself in a blind tizzy. Fires and riots on every block. Aaki and Silak are taking teams out, you're staying here to hold down the fort with me and Hann."

Holding down the fort while the city experienced its biggest night of arson ever? He was dissappointed, but he couldn't say that he was honestly surprised. For the last ten years he had been Aumak's shadow. Though many assumed this meant that he could to slack off for being the captain's favorite, it actually proved the opposite. From the first day of training, he knew what Noatok was capable of and held his standards for the new recruit all the higher. Unlike Yakone, however, he showered the boy with praise and opportunities, which the youth deftly took advantage of. There was no doubt as to who would succeed Aumak when he retired (if he retired) and no objections either- Noatok was indisputably the best waterbender in the company. And he was hanging out at the firehouse tonight...

Two satomobile engines bearing teams of six roared out of the station house, their sirens wailing as loud as possible. Their departure finally allowed the wireless radio sitting in the middle of the staff room to be heard.

"...Police Department is fighting to put down riots in the city's center, Dragon Flats, Raicho Circle, and now the Northern Heights, where angry non-bending citizens are storming the magistrate. Many believe..."

Noatok ran over to a window and gazed outside. He expected a warzone: with people trampling over each other on the dash to safety and everything lit up in a golden blaze. But the street looked vacant and tomblike. When a person did cross through his field of vision, they moved quickly... as if something was looking for them. The gangs were out tonight, no doubt. As if the fire corps didn't have enough to worry about. One of his roommates had been picked off by the Triads last month on a call. They'd take advantage of the fear choking the city into mayhem.

"Mak! Aaki! Somebody help!" a terrified female voice echoed in from another room.

A well-curved young woman of Water Tribe descent ran through the open door of the staff room, coughing amidst her tears. Noatok's insides seized. It was Yanna, a local girl he'd had a crush on for some time. From the salt stains trailing down her copper-colored face, it was evident that she wasn't there to ask him out. Aumak heard the commotion and poked his glossy head out of his office, where he was listening to the police spotters.

"Noa! Mak! You've gotta come quick! Hoods set my uncle's shop on fire! They're taking everything!" she sobbed.

The two men glanced at each other for barely a second before they took off running down the street, the girl trailing behind them. Yanna was distantly related to Aumak- as many people in the neighborhood tended to be, and the store in question was only a block to the south; a quick job. Nothing the pair of them couldn't handle. But someone had to have a lot of gall to set a blaze right under the fire corp's nose.

It was amazing the difference that one block made. The neighborhood had unraveled into a full-on riot, with people of both bending and non-bending persuasions brawling in the streets, looting shops, and vandalizing any public structure that might serve a political purpose. Noatok wondered where the police were. Typically the metalbenders were present at the first sign of trouble- but there wasn't a single unit in sight. Not even a petty constable. Their absence only spurred the crowd into a dizzier level of anarchy.

Yanna's uncle was a jeweler- an easy target for the greedy eyes of whatever gang had set it alight. Its normally friendly, gleaming windows had been smashed open to get at the treasures inside. Plumes of tawny-gray and black smoke swirled out of the broken gaps. They were lucky. The fire hadn't spread to the top stories yet. If Yanna had been only three or four minutes slower, the building would have been as good as charcoal.

"Cover me, Noa!" Aumak ordered. The captain summoned a stream of water from a nearby storm drain and encased his padded body with a suit of liquid armor. Simultaneously, the youth gathered his own aquatic arsenal, which floated in loose spirals around his arms.

Aumak sloshed into the building to kill the inferno from the inside while Noatok hosed through the broken windows. Gradually the dark smoke mixed with hopeful white steam. They were pushing it back. An arrow-shaped spray flew out the window and nearly doused him in the face. Aumak needed more water. Teeth gritted with concentration, he delicately floated a large torrent of murky water up towards the debris-strewn threshold.

A chain-wrapped fist made contact with his jaw and the water dismally splashed onto the pavement. Noatok nearly toppled over from the force. Blood and saliva trickled from his throbbing mouth and cut lips. He turned around to see a thick thug in a leather coat standing there, leering at him, "And what do you think you're doing?"

Noatok's jaw was paralyzed in pain; he could feel it swell with every throb of his heartbeat. One hand cupped his pulverized face while the other whipped upwards. With a grunt, he froze the puddle and shot a volley of keen, icy darts at his assailant's back, where several lodged in deep. The thug toppled over sputtering. Rivulets of blood collected on the dirty pavement under him. The intact half of Noatok's face smirked and he once more summoned a float of water to relieve Aumak.

This time a sack stuffed with looted goods whirled around on the back of his head and bore him to the ground next to the fallen hood. As Noatok's storm-colored eyes flickered shut, he saw a man approach the doorway of the ruined shop. He spread his arms wide and ignited the wooden lintel and post. Golden-orange flames shot up and danced on the night breeze...

_Korra was with Noatok. They both lay sprawled on the ground in darkness. She looked upon his young, broken body in pity and even felt the urge to give him a hug. Poor guy was just doing his job, protecting his neighborhood. She found herself hoping that he had killed that thug. And wondering what became of Aumak... she didn't have long to consider either before the scene changed yet again..._

It was, for lack of any better description- a basement. When Noatok's eyelids flickered open, all he could see was an expanse of unwelcoming gray stone, lit by rather medieval-looking torches. His hands were chained over his head to a steel girder. They had been elevated for so long that they had turned yellowish-white and barely responded when he tried to wiggle them. Where was he?

A quick inventory of his mouth revealed that his jaw wasn't broken, just swollen stiff. Thank the Moon and Ocean. One side of his face looked like a puffer frog, with scabbed patches of dried black blood trailing down his chin. If he didn't know any better, he'd have sworn that someone had swapped his tongue with a cow's. It felt like there was a parade marching through his skull...

"Hey boss, look- the splasher's up."

Noatok clumsily swung his head around to see a trio of men sitting at a table playing cards. One of them threw down his hand and swaggered over. That had to be the aforementioned boss. Nobody, save for someone in charge was that short, yet that sure of himself. He wore a long crimson coat draped in gold chains, a mocking iteration of a United Republic uniform. One side of his head was shaved to show off a black and orange dragon tattoo.

"Good morning splasher," the man jeered and snapped his fingers. One of his thugs obediently flew to his side and began taking off the superior's multitude of gold rings. "Welcome to the abode of the Agni Kais. Hope you slept well."

The young waterbender defiantly glared, unimpressed.

"Do you know who I am?" the man asked with a drawl. He didn't even wait for Noatok to shake his head," I'm Sheng the Scorcher. This district is mine. I own the streets, I own the people, and I own your sorry ass."

Despite the evident danger (and overwhelming pain), Noatok just couldn't keep his mouth shut, "That's funny. I've never seen your name on it."

Sheng's smile melted into a scowl. He bathed his right hand in blue flames and dragged it across the waterbender's torso. It easily burned through his uniform and seared his flesh with a grotesque hiss. Noatok howled as pain radiated off of the burn in unimaginably agonizing waves. When his cries subsided, the Scorcher extinguished his hand and taunted, "You're a real joker, kid. But you're also real dumb- y'see- I don't like people getting in my way. That shopkeep owed me two thousand yuans. He refused to pay up, so my boys here made him pay in ash. Until you and your pal had to go and get in the way."

"Where's my captain? Have you got him here too?" He looked around the basement for Aumak. Maybe they had him chained up, too.

The remaining hood at the table let out a reedy laugh, "We only had room in the trunk for him, so we fried the old guy."

"Shut up, Sao!" the crime boss snapped, eyelid twitching. A quick slick of his black hair later, and he had regained his smug, snakelike composure, "As my colleague here said, your pal was in the way. You understand..."

For a moment, Noatok could have sworn that his vision fully blanked to white. He swallowed hard. Aumak- Mak. Dead. It couldn't be. Those fire-breathing snakes had to be lying, he naively though. Aumak was too good, too awesome to be taken down by the bottomfeeding likes of them. He'd get out of this dungeon and go back to the station and see the old man sitting at his desk, drinking tea, and then he'd harass him about the stripes on his chest. He'd tell him they made him look tough.

The young man's entire face quivered uncontrollably. Out of spite and misery his eyes closed. Mak wouldn't want them to see his tears, don't give them the satisfaction- but he couldn't help it. He sobbed. For the last ten years, Mak's lined smile and sarcastic encouragement were the foundation he built his new life on. Mak taught him his trade, he showed him every street of Republic City, he taught him how to trust people again. That scruffy-faced oaf painted the Mark of the Brave between his brows the night he fought his first fire. Mak taught him how to be a man. He was more of a father to him than Yakone had ever been... How could life go on without him?

Deep within Noatok's being something severed. It made him choke, but filled him with a new and terrifying strength. For the first time in ten years, he willingly allowed his mind to remember that forbidden, dark knowledge.

"You sons of bitches are going to pay for that!" he bellowed, warm tears streaming down his cheeks.

Sheng shoved his smarmy face deep into his field of vision, almost touching nose to nose and laughed.

Flecks of saliva misted the young man's fuming face. "Oh really?" the crime boss managed to gasp out between guffaws, "And how are you going to do that? Your hands are tied... and other than you bawling, I don't see any water around here, do you, boys?"

On cue, the two thugs shook their head jeeringly, "Nope! No water here, boss."

The tears stopped, replaced with a stare as sharp and cold as ice. Noatok's grief and rage drained out of his face, replaced by a placid, though amused expression. It made Sheng and his hoods take a step back- then another once their prisoner began to laugh. It was coarse, clear, and most disturbing of all- delighted.

"Oh I beg to differ. There's water everywhere."

_Korra wanted desperately to wake up. For years Amon stalked her nightmares, made her shriek and mew in her sleep- but it all seemed like folly compared to now. Seeing these visions of the past and knowing how her greatest enemy came to be was more horrifying than a hundred masks or a thousand chi-blockers. It scared her because she understood. In fact, she applauded the young Noatok for taking out those gangsters. If she had been there, she would have joined him. She would have healed his chest and jaw and together they would have turned the Agni Kais inside out._

_Then she remembered that the waterbender punishing those wicked men was Amon, who tried to rip her bending away. Both cloaked in there dreaming and tucked into bed, she wanted to scream._

Pay attention Korra.

_She relaxed. It was Aang, Roku, Kyoshi- and all of her past lives beckoning in a cacophonous but beautiful unison. Her dismal dreams filled with silver light. For a moment, she was worried that it was more scenes from Noatok's past- her heart just couldn't handle another- but the wave of peace that wafted over reassured her. What faded into view was beautiful._

She was flying. Stark, steel gray waters under a white cloudy sky stretched out in all directions. The sweet, heavy scent of salt air filled her nostrils with the same calming reverence of incense. Innumerable waves bowed their white-capped heads before her, indefinitely it seemed. Just when she thought the ocean stretched to eternity, a small black speck appeared on the horizon. Her speed increased, causing the strange shape to grow.

It was an island, shaped like a swimming turtle. Its shell was crusted with rugged rocks and the eery skeletons of dead trees. The closer she got, the more Korra worried that she might impale herself on their bare canopy- but she simply passed through the thin, wooden sentinels. Somewhere beyond sight she heard singing: happy and sad, low and lilting all at the same time. The chorus of shimmering voices didn't seem to use words, but instead sang of incomparable peace. A little closer and she could make out a large stone in the center of the island's dead forest. Unlike its craggy counterparts that lined the shores, this rock seemed to be made of opalescent, mirrored glass. It took Korra' breath away (if she had any).

She reached out to touch its luminous surface, but was pulled back by some unseen force. Backwards she flew, having barely seen the odd, secret place.

_Remember this place, Korr_a, her past lives urged.

She wondered how she could ever forget anything she had seen that night.

**Notes**

**-**The bit about nobody sitting down at Ardnaa's is based off of a piece of advice I had received from a friend about going to a Goth/Industrial club in Detroit. I followed it...

- MEANINGFUL NAMES: Aumak is Inuit for 'ember', pretty appropriate for a fireman- while Sakari ironically means 'sweet'. Aaki is the Anishinaabe word for 'Earth' or mother nature. I intended to write more about her, but the chapter was getting convoluted.

-All right, I'm going to catch some hell for this, but this is how I explain Noatok's paleness in Korra: Have you noticed that most of the people in Republic City are paler? Not just people of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom descent- but also Water tribe individuals like Tahno and Hasook. Korra and Tarrlok weren't born in the city, or at least hadn't been living there most of their lives, so they've retained their original pigmentation. The explanation? City life. Industrial cities between 1820 and 1950 were famous for poor diet, bad hygeine, smog and other pollution, and other earmarks of an unhealthy lifestyle and it was DOCUMENTED that city-dwellers were noticeabley paler than their rural counterparts.

Also at least ten years wearing a mask, come on.

-I have no idea where Aumak became Jet from Cowboy Bebop, but that's cool. (META JOKE)

-So many meta jokes, collect them all.

-I have no idea if ice dodging is exclusive to the Southern Water tribe, but I really liked it as a coming of age ritual. It also makes sense that Water Tribers living abroad would have to improvise or change the ritual to work with their environments. I even toyed with the idea of rich Water Tribe families paying waterbenders to set up fake ice dodging courses in Yue Bay- of course much easier to navigate than real ones...


	7. The Ghost

_Sorry for the wait you guys! I should have Chapter 8 up within the next 24 hours and you won't have to wait nearly as long as a month and a half for 9. Thanks to everyone who has read, continued to read, and encouraged me to continue this (now not so) little story. This chapter is a little slow, but immediately launches into the action of the next..._

Sunlight danced across Korra's eyelids, making her lazily turn in bed. One of her hands flopped beyond the warm borders of her sleeping mat and onto the earthen floor, which she quickly retracted. It made her aggravatingly aware of her body- _so much for sleeping_. The Avatar opened her eyes into cautious slits, growling an atonal curse to daylight. Beams of clear sun streamed in through the smoke hole of the meeting house and rendered her bitterly blind. Mornings were evil; getting out of a warm bed, doubley so.

So she didn't. Her blanket tugged over her head in defiance. She was still caught somewhere between dreaming and reality and wanted to stay there, just until she had time to process everything she had seen. The crude outlines were there: Noatok... Republic City... Fire... Torture...Death. However, smaller details also stood out, almost more memorable: the earthy smell of a dingy bar some time around midnight, the clattering of an alarm bell, blued black ink under taut, muscled sk-

Of course, she just _had_ to remember that one. The young woman let out an unflattering groan and began again. Republic City... Noatok... the Agni Kais... darkness- still darkness, then...

The blankets flew off in a billowing instant and she looked around the room. _Eska- _where was Eska? Once more she closed her eyes to cajole the memories to stay until she could relate them to the old healer. In the pinkish black void of her eyelids she imagined the island, swimming in the middle of the sea with its barren trees and strange stone. Only when it was locked in her memory did she allow daylight to flood her view.

How did she end up back near the fire? Hadn't she fallen asleep at the base of Eska's chair,which now sat vacant? The young woman stretched her lithe limbs like a cat- first her legs, then her brawny arms with a generous crack. Despite her demanding dreams she felt well-rested: the line of dried drool on the corner of her mouth proved it.

She swiped crusts of sleep from the corners of her eyes. When she opened them, Eska was standing in the doorway with a basket of laundry. The old woman immediately noticed Korra sitting up, "Ah! You're finally awake. I was afraid you would sleep until nightfall."

The Avatar suddenly realized the time. She had so much to prepare for that night and she had probably wasted most of the day visiting the past and drooling on herself! How long had she been out for? "Spirits," she cursed, scrambling to get her boots on, "What time is it?"

Eska set a neatly-folded pile of clean clothes on a nearby bench. "Almost mid-day." Being a proper Water Tribe mother, she added, "Are you hungry?"

Korra heaved a sigh of relief. Still several hours until nightfall- plenty of time to organize. Another deep stretch arched her back and tugged at her taut belly, which she scratched, "Sure. D'you have any more of those tuna cod from last night?"

"No, but I have something even better," the old woman jovially toddled over to a slab of ice and hoisted up a striped side of meat: tiger seal. A rare treat in a time of year when they migrated to the warmer waters near the Earth Kingdom. Under its namesake patterned skin sat a thick layer of white fat that made Korra's mouth water. "Merak dropped it off a few hours ago with a couple of arctic hens. I was thinking we'd get you in a bath while it's cooking..."

Oh spirits. The shades from her dreams flooded back and filled her mind with images of young Noatok... Amon. Who was he now? Where did one man end and the other begin? In an effort to appear uninterested, he stared at the dry tips of her hair, "Oh, he was here?"

Eska was cutting slits in the seal and stuffing it with wild garlic. Her cerulean stare shifted towards the girl, tinged with curiosity, "Yes. He dropped off his catch, I fed him our leftovers. I had him move you over to the fire. I was worried that you'd get cold."

All of a sudden, Korra felt the urge to do a few push-ups- mainly out of the need to hide her reddening face. He held her... and she didn't know. In a way she felt almost violated, harassed... though curious. What if he knew she was dreaming about him? Normally she would have rounded her frustration on Eska- but the old woman didn't know any better. She didn't know that every time that man touched her it was out of spite or the desire to harm- well, _almost_ every time. To make things easier, she half-heartedly devised that it was his secret plan all along to place her next to the fire so she'd burn to death as she slept.

"Soo- what did you slip me last night? I had the craziest dreams."

"Oh... Nothing you didn't need, I promise you that." There was a smile on her worn face that Korra couldn't place- halfway between triumphant and mischievous. It annoyed her a bit; she had passed by hophouses in the sleazier districts of Republic City and the last thing she needed right now was for her one good lead to be nothing but a drug-induced hallucination.

Eska stabbed the meat onto a roasting spit, bloody juices dripping and sizzling as the fire lapped them up. The smell was heavenly, but it would be a lengthy wait until it was cooked through. A piece of jerky sailed into Korra's lap to tide her over. "Come on," she clapped, "Out of bed. Hop! Hop!You need a bath, child."

While her attitude towards baths had vastly improved since she was five (her mother barely escaped with all ten fingers on a few occasions), Korra wasn't in the mood to leave her woolly puddle of comfort- particularly when she learned that she would have to trek through the snow to get to the bath house. But the old healer was unyielding in her fight and even resorted to prodding the Avatar out of the meeting house with her stout walking stick, all the while reminding her that "cleansing the body was just as important as cleansing the mind". Or that "a hot bath was good for the chakras". Or that quite frankly, she was beginning to smell like low tide at the docks. One whiff of her sweat-caked, clammy tunic was enough to prove it and Korra marched down the hill, wrapped in a robe three-sizes too large.

Her heart sank. She was expecting Naga to come bounding towards her the second she poked her head outside, like she always did. For the entire walk her hopes were fooled by local dogs baying when they passed by or thinking that she saw the friendly beast out of the corner of her eye. She wondered if Naga was alone at that very moment, whining and hungry.

Eska shepherded her inside of the hide-covered hut which greeted them with a wall of steam. A stove sat in the middle of the yurt constantly boiling water for the oblong tubs arrayed around it. The humidity assaulted their skin and turned their hair into frizz, but it was a refreshing change from the snow- though it reminded Korra of her fight with Amon the night before. For being mid-day, it was eerily vacant. "Where is everyone?" Korra asked as she kicked off her boots.

"Sleeping." The old woman drew towards the array of boiling kettles and began to sweep little streams of water from each into a tub on her right. It looked like she was playing some strange, liquid harp. While her form was stooped and slow, it was precise- the same techniques used to soothe the human body. "Most of the village has taken to sleeping during the day so they can keep a better watch. Much good it does, however."

Another knife of shame jabbed its way into her heart. She hated herself for her short-sightedness, her pride- that's what lost Jinora and Naga and the other children. Korra curled up on the ground with chin touching the peaks of her knees while Eska filled the tub. There was a plan floating around somewhere, like that island from her dreams... "Eska- are there any islands near here with trees?"

That was something remarkable in itself. Very few places in the Northern Water tribe were capable of sustaining plants year-round, much less trees. The few patches of taiga along the southern borders typically bolstered needle-bearers, not the tall, stately trunks of dead cedar from her dream.

"With trees?" Eska's lips pursed," Why do you ask?" She stopped tugging her ribbons of water once the tub was half full and began sprinkling in an amber liquid from a small vial. It smelled of old rose and sharp balsam- nothing Korra would wear personally, but it beat the stench of sweat and failure she was currently sporting.

"I had a dream last night," she confessed in a small voice,"I was flying and I saw this island way out in the water. It was covered in tall, dead trees and had this glowing stone in the middle... it didn't look like anything I'd seen. It was so weird." She neglected to mention her other dreams about Amon's genesis- it'd be far too much to explain, and frankly, she didn't want to know what it meant. In a way, she already did.

A wave of the woman's spider-webbed hand ushered Korra to the steaming bath, then she turned to allow the Avatar to undress. (As if she didn't feel awkward enough unloading her dreams on the woman.) Korra quickly peeled off her tunic, pants, breechclout and wrappings before placing an experimental toe in the water. Piping hot, like a floral-scented bowl of soup. It felt wonderful on her tired muscles and the little aches plaguing her spine cleared out like a swarm of bumbleflies. When the initial splashing of her limbs dipping in subsided, the old woman turned back around, this time holding a large bristled brush.

Eska didn't ask before attacking the tangled ends of her hair with it. "This island," she mused, swiping at the Avatar's umber, coil-like tresses, "Was it shaped like a turtle?"

"Yes!"

"And did you hear it sing?" The brush flicked furiously through a patch of snarls. It delayed Korra's reply since her teeth were busy grinding against each other. Her toes pushed into the end of the tub. Brushing her hair was so much of an annoyance that she rarely did it, which she later regretted every time the combs attacked.

When her scalp stopped throbbing, she exclaimed,"Yes! I could hear singing! I couldn't tell what they were saying though... it didn't even sound like words or any song I'd heard before. It was beautiful, though. Have you heard about this place?"

Eska released Korra's fuzzy mane with a faint smile, "Yes. Merak told me that he dreamed of the very same island last night. How strange that you both saw it."

Without realizing, Korra let out a strangled, choking sound: when would the spirit world quit tagging him in? So now he could hear Aang _and_ share her dreams? It seemed... rude- this was her realm of (extremely limited) expertise- not his. She was the Avatar, he was an ex- mask-wearing terrorist. She took a deep breath and plunged herself under the balmy bathwater, turning the world into warm stillness punctuated by her echoing heartbeat.

But then again, it wasn't that simple any more. Even during the events of the Equalist uprising, Korra had her qualms about which side garnered her support. In fact, if de-bending the world hadn't been so integral to Amon's agenda, she just might have signed up with his revolution. And after seeing what drove him to take up violence against benders- she would have punished those gangsters, too if they had killed someone like Tenzin or Katara. When she considered what she knew about Noatok, there was no question that she sympathized. But when she remembered that this was also Amon, the unfeeling, unyielding madman that injured, kidnapped, destroyed, threatened- she just couldn't allow herself to understand on the principle of his crimes.

Korra surfaced with a hearty gasp for air, her hair hanging in thick curtains on her face. Without a moment of hesitation, Eska advanced on it with a hunk of tallowy soap while the Avatar slouched in the bath like a condemned criminal. The last time she had a bath this violent was when she was six and discovered rolling around in mysterious disgusting piles with Naga. Unlike that momentous occasion, Eska handed the soap to her so she could wash her own body, then retreated to sit. Korra ran the grainy block up and down her toned limbs and in hearty circles on the crests of her broad shoulders and breasts. The subtle touch of grit embedded in the tallow felt refreshing on the ashy patches on her feet and elbows that winter had given her.

Over the sound of skin and lather, Eska's voice richly tolled, "Legend tells that when Avatar Kuruk died of a broken heart, the whole world wept for him. All four nations, the mountains, the forests. Even Tui and La mourned." She paused briefly to roll up the wet hems of her sleeves. "Since Kuruk was the last avatar from the Northern Water Tribe in a thousand years and he had died so young, the North Star was particularly saddened. When she rose that night and saw him dead, she wept so hard that one of her tears fell to the earth. That stone you saw in your dreams, Korra, is a tear of the North Star. It is imbued with power and a mighty spirit of the wind guards it."

The Avatar listened to the story with rapt attention- mystified to think that part of the spirit of the North Star sat waiting in the middle of the ocean. That was probably her best ticket to the spirit world, unless she wanted to travel two days by umiak to the capital to meditate at the Spirit Oasis. "And the island? Where do I find it?" she leaned up against the back of the tub, chin resting on her folded arms.

Eska shook her head, "The Island of the North Star can be found only if it allows. Many have gone searching, only to return days later without catching sight. Then some fishermen caught in a storm will happen upon it and anchor upon its shoal."

Korra clapped the rim of the tub with a wet hand and beamed, "But I'm the Avatar, Eska! I dreamed of the island, which means I'm meant to find it!" With a flood of boisterous splashes she dunked herself underwater and rinsed the soap from her hair and skin. Eska had barely any warning to cover her eyes when the Avatar literally came flying out of the tub. The old healer offered her a towel with her gaze averted, despite seeing naked human bodies hundreds of times before through her work. Perhaps some taboo of looking upon the Avatar Korra didn't know about.

She vented herself dry with airbending, but took the towel anyhow for modesty. For the first time all day she felt excited. "I'll paddle out this afternoon and find the island. Then I'll go to the Spirit- wait! Do you have a boat, Eska? Can I borrow it? And some food and maybe a-"

"Don't you think you should talk to Merak first?" Eska's practicality cut through Korra's inspired chatter. "After all, he did dream of the island as well. I doubt the spirits would send him the same dream without some intention of helping you find it."

That put a damper on her joy, even if it was true- the spirit world didn't exactly throw out dreams like chicken bones. Perhaps she would go talk to him, see if he had any new information. With any luck, he could even give her a point in the right direction and she could run off while he brooded or plotted revenge on seals or whatever he did for fun these days.

While she was deep in thought, Eska pressed a bundle of clean clothes to the young woman's chest, then turned around again. It was a simple set of Water Tribe winter garb: a fresh breechclout, a long tunic with a split skirt in a dusty blue, paired with indigo trousers. The collar was deftly embroidered with white moons, making a complete cycle around the garment's neck- no doubt made by the healer's gifted hands. When Korra tugged them on she found they fit remarkably well. While she sat on the ground and fiddled with pleating the bulky legs of her new pants into her boots, the old woman ran her hands through her hair with a palmful of oil. Korra tried to get up, anxious to start her journey, but Eska's hand lightly pressed her down.

"C'mon Eska, I've got to go! I'll eat when I get back from Merak's."

"Avatar, I haven't had a girl to fuss over since my grandson was married. That was eight years ago. Humor an old woman." She began separating the Avatar's usually unruly mane into sections with the aid of a fishbone comb.

Now it all made sense: the bath, the brushing, the clothes. Korra was a surrogate: a spark of excitement for Eska since her nest had long since emptied. No wonder she doted on Amon. It made her feel a bit guilty that she resisted the coddling if it meant that much to her host. The island could wait five more minutes. "All right," she sighed," But no hair loopies. I look ridiculous in them."

Thankfully Eska heeded her request and instead arranged her sidelocks into half-braided tassels, then folded the bulk of her hair up into a rolled bundle and secured it with a long wrapping of white floss and a bone pin. It wasn't needlessly fancy, which Korra liked. There were a few blinks given for the matriarch to admire her work before Korra grabbed her robe and bolted across the sea plane towards Amon's lodge. Once the arctic air hit her, she regretted not going back to the meeting house for her parka, but that just made her run even faster.

Amon had rebuilt his front door. The polar-bear dog carving didn't look as impressive as the original that she destroyed but for work in a pinch, it was decent. Korra wrapped her hand in her sleeve and knocked.

No answer. So she knocked again, even harder.

Nothing. A third time proved just as futile. _Probably sleeping_, she thought, then drew back her fist to graciously give Amon some more carving practice. Her hand was about to make contact when she heard faint murmuring- a conversation she just couldn't make out. It was coming from the nearby cove... just as Kaisun had mentioned yesterday. On cushions of spun air, she obscured her footfalls and crept closer until she could distinguish the voices coming from just behind the rocks.

"Absolutely not," said Amon's voice firmly, the air of an irate father poking through his usual clinical growl.

"But Master- it's been a whole week since I practiced," the other whined. It sounded like a girl, perhaps ten or eleven. Despite his glowing reviews from Eska and Kaisun, Korra couldn't help but feel a twinge of fright at the thought of Amon being so close to a child- and alone.

"And once this is all resolved we'll resume our lessons. But until then it's just too dangerous."

"Just one lesson! A little one. A little tiny, eensy-"

"No," he grunted sternly. In the following silence, Korra could see the disappointment on the girl's face. It was enough to make Amon add, much gentler, "Asootna. There are so few children left in the village, we cannot risk your safety. It would be best to go home and stay close to your family tonight."

Asootna's voice cracked pitifully, "Master, I don't feel safe at home. Can't I stay with you?"

"Definitely not," Amon was quick to decide. "Aren't your parents keeping watch over you?"

"They're too busy worrying about my baby brothers to care."

"Little brothers need a lot of looking after, they'll need you to protect them, too," he said without a trace of coldness, which made the breath catch in Korra's throat. The sad story. Amon couldn't have said that without thinking of the brother he failed to protect. "If something attacks you or your brothers, I want you to use what I've taught you."

"But what if-"

"Promise me. Why else am I teaching you these things?"

"Yes, Master. I promise," her gravity and resolve made Korra crack a smile.

Apparently Amon did, too, because his response beamed down at the girl, "Good. If you promise to be prudent when you practice your drills, when we resume I'll teach you how to make a snow spout."

Asootna shrieked with delight," The snow spout? _Awesome!_ Yes, Master, I'll practice everyday when my dad goes hunting- I swear!"

"Good. Run home, don't worry your parents."

Korra heard the girl's choppy footfalls as they crunched through the snow and shrunk nervously against the rock. While she planned on hopping down and scaring the chi out of Amon, the kid wasn't involved in the equation. Thankfully, the little figure dressed in an oversized parka zipped off without a second look, twin braids bouncing behind her. The Avatar let out a sigh of relief, then poked her head out from her hiding place. Amon was staring off at the calm blue sea, still as a statue. _How melodramatic_, she muttered to herself.

"Huh!" she called out impishly," Who'd have thought that the leader of the Equalists was so good with kids?" Even she had to admit that it was a _little_ cute. Men palling around with children was a soft spot of hers.

To her dismay, Amon didn't jump out of his skin- in fact he didn't seem the least surprised. The wind fluttered his wolf-tail as he turned, "Avatar, good of you to pry into my personal business." For a moment she expected to see the mass of bruises along his jaw where the Agni Kais struck him, but then remembered that it was twenty years healed.

Korra revealed herself and meandered onto the horseshoe-shaped beach. A large rock in her path seemed an excellent perch to taunt him upon. "So! What was that about?" her voice dripped with a sick sweetness which screamed that she knew. It was all for the sake of pestering him- his all too careful demeanor begged for it.

"One of my students," he huffed. Any patience he had given Asootna evaporated in the presence of the Avatar.

"Your _secret_ student," Korra corrected.

If looks could kill, Amon had an arsenal on his hands. "Yes, not every nation is as liberal as the Southern Water Tribe, Avatar. There are still ancient taboos in place here."

As if she needed reminding. Seventy-five years after her mentor made a stand against the patriarchal school of Northern Waterbending and girls still couldn't learn to fight. She knew the risk that Asootna was taking if she were ever caught: she would be shamed, labeled a virago and Amon would be shunned from ever teaching waterbending again. Every lesson was a chance of losing the status he enjoyed. "Then why are you teaching her if it's so risky?" She was curious if they shared an answer.

Amon donned his old rhetoric for a moment, the charismatic dramaturgy that she had seen undercover at Equalist rallies. His steely blue eyes seemed to bore a hole into her head. "Equality wasn't just something I decided looked striking on a poster, Avatar- I believed in it. I still do. In the Northern Tribe there is no persecution towards non-benders, Kaisun and even the High Chief himself cannot bend. Instead what cannot be tolerated are women possessing the same knowledge and capabilities as men. This old, dated tradition has become meaningless when even now, a thousand miles to the south young women are not only allowed, but _expected _to be competent. The world laughs at the old men who mandate this tyrany in the guise of tradition, while their wives and daughters are forced to accept. I teach Asootna so that when she grows to marrying age, she will have a choice. Her life can be more than bearing children and healing the sick, if she so decides."

_If she decides_. Somewhere in his speech, Korra's mouth had popped open: she had forgotten what a powerful orator he could be, particularly when the fervor moved him. Beyond that, it rocked her conscience to discover that she and Amon actually agreed on something so... essential. Her gut reaction was to whoop in agreement or high-five the man (_did Amon high-five?_), but thankfully she restrained herself.

"... and is she a good student?"

The ardent smile that unfurled across Amon's face looked so foreign that Korra felt like she was seeing it for the first time, "My very best."

After such an admirable display she wanted to say something wise, something poignant, something... _Avatar-y_, in lack of a better word- but eloquence was never Korra's strong suit. Instead, with passion welling in her heart, she rose to hear feet, clapped Amon on the shoulder like a compatriot and proclaimed, "Do you have a boat?"

The man looked down at her as if she had just told a dirty joke at a funeral."What?" he blinked.

Obviously that wasn't as inspiring as she'd hoped. Only the slightest crestfallen, she explained, "Eska told me that you had a dream about the Island of the North Star last night. I did, too! It has to be a gateway to the spirit world and I think-_ I know_ you're supposed to go with me."

"Eska?" he murmured with knit brows- perhaps puzzled, perhaps impressed. However, his interest flickered out into a hollow, "No."

"What?!" Korra caterwauled, sounding like a cross between a porpoise and a foghorn. She had done everything right! She found common ground and reached out to her old enemy, listened to her dreams- real grade A avatar stuff! Was there something her past lives weren't telling her? Her hands clawed in frustration, "What do you _mean_ no?! You can't just write off dreams from the Spirit World like that! They're _dreams_. From the _Spirit World_! What if I need your help out there, huh? You want that on your conscience, pal?" It didn't occur to her that she was ranting at Amon, the bloodbending ex-terrorist who, as far as she knew, was still capable of chi-blocking and removing bending. Right now he was being very rude.

"I'm sorry, Avatar," he sighed and turned towards his dwelling. It appeared that he was declining out of mandate rather than spite- but for Korra, that was still unacceptable. She stalked around him and puffed up on her own bluster to get into his face... which was a fruitless task. Even though she had grown, Amon was still a full head taller- so she shot herself up with a burst of airbending.

"Why not? Are you booked up for the day? Got a hot date or something?"

The distance between their glaring pairs of blue eyes- hers wide and bright like a sunny sky, his harsh as a sea squall- was a single hand's width. Korra was so possessed with anger that she didn't notice, but Amon did. The older of the two prodigies took a step back with the expression of some unseen hand tearing into his guts.

"I don't go on the open water. Not anymore," he confessed. His stubborn gaze had found a particularly white patch of tundra to stare at.

"What kind of a... oh," she bit her lip. The boat. Bad enough that it nearly killed him, which would be enough for anyone to develop a fear- even Amon, but it also claimed Tarrlok. Did he have nightmares about the sea like she did about his mask for so many years? '_Admitting your fears is the first, and most difficult step in overcoming them_', murmured that calming voice from her past. Maybe Tenzin's encouragement could help him... but something about nursing Amon's injured psyche didn't sit well at all.

"I'll tell you what," she angled shrewdly to his averted stare," Come with me and I promise I won't tell the villagers about who you are."

An agitated 'hurumph' shook Amon's shoulders. He looked like a sea eagle with ruffled feathers and thoroughly unamused expression. "I never knew you to bargain, Avatar."

"Well, that just shows how serious I am," she countered with a cat-eyed smirk. When he began to pace, she knew that she had at least pushed him towards a solid 'maybe'.

He sneered at her ease, "This isn't just something I can discard at your command, you know. It can't be switched on and off like an engine."

That wasn't a no- if anything, it was a challenge for her to turn it into a yes. She stepped into the path of his pacing, hands on her hips, "Nothing's going to happen to us out there. If we find the island and come back, I don't tell anybody your secret. If we explode _in an umiak_ and die, then your secret's safe anyway. If you don't go, then I can't go to the spirit world, we don't find Jinora and Naga and all of the kids, and I tell everybody in Tyra AND the United Forces and ruin your life. And you know it's only a matter of time before that monster takes Asootna."

"You think I haven't already thought about that?!" he snarled, obviously flustered. As a master he was responsible for the safety of his students and if he didn't accompany her, if he denied the spirit world, then he was personally aiding in their abduction. They both knew it.

"So come with me!" Korra countered with an ambitious smirk, "Let's face it- out there on the water the most dangerous thing is going to be you."

A sulking, baleful, but ultimately harmless glare was his reply. Again, they both knew the odds and the pressure stacked against Amon's decision to humor his fears- something he never had the luxury to do. The young Avatar's pure stare pushed and pushed until his doubt was shoved aside with a resigned, "Very well."

Korra felt on top of the world when she realized that she had defeated Amon without throwing a single punch. Truly an achievement Aang would be proud of. But she still didn't trust the Equalist: he was dark, secret, and most worrisome of all because it was so unlike his calm, public alter ego- unpredictable. She knew that at some point, she would have to throw out what she knew of Amon and study Noatok instead.

Since he had sworn off the open ocean, Amon was the only man in the village who didn't own an umiak. For years he had thrived hunting the shallows and craggy coast for food, only venturing out onto the ice floes in calm weather. Korra decided that it was an excellent time to take advantage of her status and ask to borrow one of Kaisun's boats- by way of his mother, of course.

When Korra tumbled into the meeting house, the fire was being tended by a much young woman just scantly bearing the first swell of pregnancy. The large loin of tiger seal was missing from the spit and Eska's chair was noticeably empty, even of her swathes of pelts and blankets.

"Where's Eska?" the young Avatar panted.

The pregnant girl looked shocked. Her round face turned pale as a fish's belly and her mouth went agape. Before anything could sputter from her throat Korra heard Amon beckon from outside, "Avatar! To the shore, quickly!" She didn't give the girl a second thought.

"What is it?" she panted after a brisk sprint down the hill.

"We've been provided for," Amon pointed to the beach with uncharacteristic breathlessness. A neat line of skiff-like umiaks stood like sentinels against the surf- lightweight to speedily navigate the rocks, but solid enough to support waterbending postures amidst rough seas. One sat apart from the others, already untethered, its prow boldly nosing onto the tide-exposed beach. The two waterbenders investigated it warily; it was stuffed with provisions- enough for a two day journey- with oil, lamps, even a pair of harpoons.

"I think these are for you," he tossed Korra a small bundle which was nestled in the bow.

The young woman's eyes went wide as she unwrapped an exquisite pair of mittens, the same ones Eska had been working on the night before. Blue-flossed lupine flowers twined across their soft hide cuffs, which were lined in gray rabbit squirrel fur that bid Korra to put her hands inside. Within the fuzzy warm depths of the left one, there was a neatly scrawled note:

_It will be cold tonight. Take care, I will see you again soon._

Korra's cheeks crested in a smile. They were a lot fancier than what she usually wore, but a gift was a gift and the old healer was right, it would be cold out on the water. It reminded her that she had left her parka behind. "Did Eska pack any more warm clothes?"

Amon looked up from an ivory compass quizzically," Eska?"

"Yeah. She had to have gotten all this together."

"I find that doubtful," his brows knitted," Eska died last year. She caught the winter fever."

The sensation of someone pouring cold water through her veins surged down Korra's back, "Then who was I talking to last night? Who fed me? Who did my hair this morning? I couldn't have done it all to myself."

"That is true," he smirked," You do tend to keep yourself in disarray."

A momentary scowl passed between the two waterbenders amid their shock. It wasn't that Korra didn't believe him. After all, why would he lie about something like that? Everything considered, it seemed that he genuinely respected Eska and it would do very little to further a plot up his sleeve by falsifying her death. But still... it was unsettling. Ghosts and spirits weren't anything to be afraid of (particularly as the Avatar, though that didn't make it any less creepy), but it took great power to be able to manifest physically after death- and the old woman's loving hand on her head felt so real, so warm. "So..." she finally murmured," You haven't seen her at all?"

"Not since we buried her last winter," the bloodbender was appropriately grim, though curious, "She must have given us the dream last night.

"But why go through all that trouble to feed me and clothe me and take care of me, then?"

Amon shrugged," You were staying in her house. She may be gone from this world, but that house is still hers. You're of the Water Tribe, Avatar, you know what it means to be a guest."

Korra nodded. The Northern and Southern tribes weren't terribly different in their strict codes of guest-host etiquette. As long as the guest stayed in a household, they would be given the best of all things, no questions asked. In return, they would love and respect the host like their own family and would be expected to repay the favor, should occasion arise. Amon was still following this code to the unwritten letter by bringing food to Eska's house, paying homage to her spirit- which was probably how her presence remained so strong. If Amon could be honorable, then so could she.

The Avatar slipped on the snug mittens and leaned forward to budge the umiak into the surf, "We should do what she wants, then. C'mon!"

**Notes:**

-I got writers' block several times during this chapter.

-I see Korra as having a massive appetite because of her lineage and the constant needs of her body for bending and muscle growth. I like a female lead with a healthy appetite!

-Balsam, rose, and cedar all grow in tundra regions of the world during summer. I imagine the Water Tribe to have territory that at least get SOME periods where plants can grow. This is probably because I imagine them as a mix of Northwest Coast and Arctic cultures.

-It is believed by some North American Indian Tribes that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle, who is the Chief of all fish. Turtles come into play in the cosmology of many indigenous groups worldwide.

-The hairstyle Eska gives Korra is a Navjo/Dine shape called a tsiyeel or chongo.

-Winter fever is an old-fashioned name for pneumonia.


	8. The Island

_As promised, here's Chapter 8, which more or less wrote itself. This Chapter is dedicated specifically to everybody's favorite grandma masksarehot, who not only was one of the amorrians who inspired me to write this, but has shown constant support and encouragement for this fic at every turn. Thanks, lady!_

It occurred to Korra a few miles out that she had forgotten to grab a parka again. The arctic wind stung at her cheeks, turning them ruddy and fluttered her sleeves around as she posed in the stern of the boat. Cold bombarded her at every angle as she twisted and undulated her limbs in harmony with the waves below. Amon had insisting on getting them past the various shoals and huddlings of ragged rocks that surrounded Tyra, but quickly hesitated once the shore had shrunk to a thin, dark ribbon. The abrupt changing of the guard spurred a "tired already?" from Korra, though she knew it was his fear of the open ocean. To her confusion, when he sat down in the prow, he turned his back to the horizon and faced her instead. It was uncomfortable to have his steely eyes so keenly fixed on her. Was this how he stared at her with the mask on?

"Shouldn't you watching ahead to help me pilot?" she finally piped up.

"No, Avatar," he replied apathetically," I'd much rather watch you." There was a note of something paranoid in his voice.

Korra huffed and narrowed her eyes. "Listen, we're going to be spending the next spirits-know-how-many hours together, can you call me something other than 'Avatar'?" she strained her voice down to mock his signature guttural snarl.

"When you learn to use my name, I'll learn to use yours," he drawled, staring up at her from under his kinked brows. Most of the time his speech sounded like it had been rehearsed to death, which put Korra off fiercely.

And call him Noatok? She silently murmured it, but the name felt foreign and awkward in her mouth. It belonged to an idealistic young man. A little dour, sure, but passionately dedicated to his work. The man brooding before her lost it the moment he donned the mask. Noatok was the final acceptance that Amon was a decent human being.. "Nope. Sorry, can't do it," she winced, as if the word burned her tongue, "Avatar it is."

"Besides, Avatar is what you are, is it not?"

"Well yeah, but I don't go around calling you Hypocrite or Liar or Crazy Guy Who Used to Run Around in a Mask. Oh! Or maybe I could call you Bloodbender!"

The umiak shuddered dangerously as Amon sprang forward and seized Korra by the throat. His fingers tightened against her neck in one swift, solid motion- though choking didn't seem his intention. He jerked her face closer and growled," Don't _ever_ call me that."

Contrary to her tenuous situation Korra stared back, unafraid. She was defiant, but summoned Aang's ominous calm, "Let me go, Amon, or I'll sink this boat. I'll make sure you don't come back this time."

For a tiniest fraction of a second, Korra saw her old foe's eyes widen in fear before they returned to their usual resentful squint. She thought she felt a tense steam knocked from his lungs collect on her cheeks, which swelled in triumph. She had him. One by one his fingers recoiled from her neck, though they took their time sliding off of the soft skin. Once more he took his seat, albeit hunkered in glowering agitation- Korra thought he looked like a toddler that had been sent to bed without dessert. "Bend the boat, Avatar," he spat.

Hours passed before they spoke again. The pleasant blue sky, inhabited by fluffy clouds that coasted along like sky bison slowly filled with a creeping gray- big enough to block out the Earth Kingdom, it seemed. Korra's waterbending became even hastier in hopes of finding land, any land.

"I don't like the looks of that," Korra panted, staring up at the darkening sky.

Amon had been watching, too. After all, for three years he had lived at the seaside, so he knew the signs La gave when he was about to rage. A cold wind whipped from the north, making them both shiver; it smelled like salt and damp.

"We need to land, there's a storm coming."

"Oh? And where do you suggest we do that?" she spat out a piece of hair that had flapped into her face.

The Equalist stood up again, but didn't lunge for her. "Perhaps if both bend the boat we can get back to shore before the storm gets its worst."

Before she could answer, he had already begun to propel the umiak around in a steep turn back to Tyra. While self-preservation told her that this was the right thing to do (being a small boat in a massive ocean looking for an island that may or may not be of that plain), but a pain in the small of her back throbbed when she looked to the East. No. They would never find the island there. The only way was to keep going into the heart of the storm. Summoning the remainder of her energy, she jolted the boat back towards the impending squall.

Amon noticed the resistance before they had even turned. "Avatar, what are you doing?"

"We aren't going to find the Island that way, we have to let the storm take us," she admonished, "If we don't, then we might as well go back to town and tell them the kids are dead. We have to get to the Spirit World!"

"If we go into that storm then we _will_ go to the Spirit World." Fear still gripped him, though would never admit it out loud to her. Slowly, he released of control over the surrounding water. It was enough to turn the boat the rest of the way back towards the storm. With a swift whip of her arms, they shot off like a festival rocket.

"Trust me!" her voice soared over the wind and sang into his ears. The umiak skipped like a stone over the waves which grew choppier by the minute, but it would not knock her from her center.

Suddenly the boat ran smooth. Instead of bobbing helplessly over each white-capped swell, it tore through them like a badgermole in earth: their course was smooth and straight. Korra looked over her shoulder and saw Amon forming his perfect, collected postures amid the spray. While her power and tenacity carried them over the waves, his control and prowess kept them stable. Between the two master waterbenders, she thought smugly, there wasn't anything La couldn't throw at them.

The ocean spirit heard her, it seemed. Rain plummeted upon them, light as children's laughter at first, but quickly leadening to freezing needles, mixed with soggy snow. Korra's clothes were completely soaked and felt like they had turned to ice with the constant barrage of wave and wind. Between waterbending postures she summoned fire from the core of her chakras in hopes of keeping her body warm. Her breath met the miserable air in thick plumes of steam.

The further they went, the wilder the waves tossed them. They crashed against the sides of the hide boat and ran over the gunwhales. Amon was able to maintain the craft's pitch and push the water out before it had an opportunity to pull them down, but his form had lost a great deal of composure.

Then the sea opened its mouth. In the ever maddening waves a swell the size of a Republic City tenement crested in view, swallowing the smaller white caps greedily. Both haggard waterbenders gawked at the behemoth.

"Korra! Brace yourself!" Amon roared from the stern. With a wave of his hand he froze his boots to the kneeboard and did the same for the young woman.

But she broke her feet loose, looked back at him, and smiled toothily, "I've got this!"

Storms were a fight between air and water; sky and sea. A waterbender didn't fear the sea, an airbender didn't fear the sky, and the Avatar wasn't afraid of either. She peered through the downpour ahead and saw it: the trough. The canyon in the surface where the wave was sucking its energy. If she timed it just right...

"Amon!" she shouted over her shoulder, "When I give the signal, jet as hard as you can behind us!"

The Equalist gawked at the realization of her plan, which made Korra even giddier. "No," he argued, "You can't be serious!"

"Too late!" she cackled, twisting her arms in the circular, sylph-like postures, "Jet or swim, Amon!"

As the bow teetered into the trough of the massive swell, Korra struck a torrent of air from each outstretched arm. From the stern, Amon drove them forward with all of his might. A frothy white wake like a rooster crow's tail spouted behind them for a few brief moments before the entire boat was sent upward. They rode the wave to its very crest then took to the air like a biplane, nearly vertical. Before anything (or anyone) could fall out, however, Korra leveled them off with a few quick gusts. Gracefully, they soared through the rain before she could no longer handle the weight and sent them in a steep arc back toward the water. It reminded her of riding an air glider for the first time. There was the same thrilling jolt in her stomach as they plummeted. To her disappointment, Amon was silent. Braced for the worst on the kneeboard, as expected. A shriek or a girly wail would have made the moment perfect.

Keel met water with a cacophonous splash and a lurch that threw Korra from her footing. She hugged onto the prow for deal life. The waves were still wild, but it seemed that they had sailed past the worst patch- though it took the young Avatar multiple attempts to stagger upright on the slick board. Once she was vertical, she threw her arms up in the air and crowed, "Wooohooo! That was _awesome_!"

Amon didn't share her enthusiasm. His steely glare bored into the back of her neck beneath a curtain of his soaked hair, "Are you _deranged_?!"

_Brave words coming from a former terrorist mastermind_, she thought. The young woman grinned maniacally, "Oh lighten up! We're alive, aren't we?!"

His arms lurched forward to fold in resignation, but he quickly remembered piloting the boat. Korra also resumed her waterbending forms, but not without a healthy modicum of excited chatter.

"I hope we hit another one! Maybe we can fly this baby clear to the Northern Air Temple! Aw... man, we've got to do that again!"

"Avatar," Amon groaned, "Focus please, before you actually manage to kill us."

"Awww, you're back to that again?" Korra asked after hiccuping a fireball to dry off her sodden mittens. Every inch of the waterbenders' clothing was drenched, though they refused to complain out of mutual stubbornness.

"I beg your pardon? Back to what?"

"You called me Korra," she noted with an odd glee," I thought for a second that icicle shoved up your ass actually melted."

Amon, leader of the Revolution didn't seem to appreciate that mental image, particularly accompanied by the Avatar's peals of laughter. She couldn't see his face (and didn't dare turn), but an aura of gloom slunk bitterly across the umiak and made her worried that he'd seize her again. Right. Amon didn't laugh. Amon didn't make jokes.

The young woman scanned the gray horizon and shivered: snow, drizzle, and windy nothingness stretched leagues before her, as far as she could see. Once more, she summoned a handful of flame to warm her cheeks and stiff fingers. The orange glow was comforting and Korra closed her eyes to let the heat kiss her tenderly... until a tiny spout of water splashed over the side and fizzled it out. "Hey!" she whined, spray dripping down her face.

A sardonic snort erupted behind her.

It couldn't be.

Dumbstruck, Korra whirled around to see Amon's face cracked by a smile. Did he just? The smirk contorted his scars and brought out the lines around his mouth, but instead of looking older he simply seemed alive. In a way, younger. She hid her awe (because this had to be something as rare as an eclipse) behind a glaring pout. "What was that for? It's cold up here, y'know?!"

The smirk faded, but did not disappear entirely. It seemed to find a home in the hollows and lines of his face. It certainly suited him better than the scowl. "It hardly seems fair that you should be able to warm yourself while I freeze as well," he observed wryly.

"Ohoh!" she whooped mischievously," You want to be fair? Fine!" In the spirit of reciprocity, she drew a glob of water from beneath the keel and sent it bursting into his new facial expression. Both were blinked away in bewilderment, which sent the Avatar back into volleys of laughter. Being the sort of man unable to stand her derision, Amon returned fire with a fan of fluid that unfurled all over her. The sudden cold made her shriek and before she knew it, she had replied with her own angry riposte.

They fought harmlessly for several minutes, though their wet clothes hung pathetically over their shivering forms and the rain continued to fall. Amon's attacks were punctuated by shocked screams from Korra, while her equally ferocious replies elicited an illusive laugh that sounded rusty. As though it had been nearly forgotten. It wasn't until she screeched from a jet of ice cold water slapping against the swell of her backside that they remembered where, why, and who they were. Immediately she bit her lips to stifle her squeal and any chatters from her teeth while Amon stood in the stern, ashamed of himself... yet silently victorious, like the cat owl that ate the canary hamster. They looked at each other, but didn't allow their stares to meet.

"Do you hear that?" he panted out white, wet words. Korra was grateful that someone had broken the frozen silence after that collective lapse in sense. Did they just have a splash fight like a pair of hormonal teenagers? She could hardly believe it- she just had a _splash fight _with her bitter enemy, the scourge of her nightmares, the man who tried to destroy her... or did she? When she vehemently shook her dripping head it wasn't in response to his question, but wondering if she had gone insane. It had to be the cold getting to her.

"Listen," he urged and tilted an ear into the drizzle. After a few more minutes of self-loathing, Korra did too. Somewhere in the snow and mist something was resonating- like a tuning fork or the hum of an engine. The more they listened the more they could pick up subtleties, like a thousand little voices whirring together. Like the buzzing of bumbleflies or the wind whistling through a stand of marsh reeds.

Korra could only stand amazed for a few moments before she swung her arms around and surged the boat towards its source. That had to be it. It sounded just like her dream and nothing of this world could make a sound that strange. Amon was transfixed, but shook his damp head and joined her. Even though they were both powerful benders, the hours of piloting the craft through surf and squall left them drained. Any moment they felt they would collapse- though they were both too proud to say, it was clear in their weary expressions.

"Look," she whispered with sparkling hope," Can you see it?"

As the chorus grew stronger, a gray shape peeked out of the drizzle. It was mounded like the back of a sleeping polar bear dog, but covered in tall quills of dead trees. Tall black rocks ringed its perimeter, making it very formidable.

Amon spoke as if dazed, "Go left. I remember- there's a beach where we can land."

_A beach_, she puzzled. That hadn't been in her dream. If she hadn't brought him with her would she have figured it out? Would she have found the island at all?

The boat skimmed the now calm waters as they circled, giving a chance for the snow caught in their hair and crusting their clothes a chance to melt. Thankfully the island was relatively small and soon a white stretch of beach peeked out between the rocks. To the waterbenders, it could have been an old friend waving hello from the smiles that broke onto their faces.

"We made it!" she whooped," Oh man I am going to build a massive fire! And I'm starving!"

Like a creeping chill, Amon chided, "Remember why we're here. We need to find the stone and send you to the spirit world."

"Which will go a lot quicker if I'm fed," the Avatar sniffed obstinately, which made him groan. "Oh come on, I know you're cold and hungry, too."

They coasted into the shallows and came to a grinding halt against the pale sand. While Amon tarried in the lapping surf to fish out a few parcels of supplies, Korra launched herself off of the umiak and ran around the beach like a rabid boarcupine. It felt so good to be able to move her feet, to be on dry land at last. Despite her fatigue from the journey she somehow found the energy to bound over the beach, tumble on the snow-frosted dunes, and cartwheel with her nearly-frozen eartails flapping in the breeze. She ended up, giggling, on the far end of the shore.

"We haven't got time for this!" Amon's irritated baritone called from yards off. From her current vantage point on top of a dune, he looked like a faceless indigo blotch. He was right, of course. The sky was darkening- not from the storm, but the coming of dusk.

Korra sighed. She tugged her wet tunic off of her collarbone and prepared to go help him unpack the umiak when she heard a fluttering sound. Like bird's wings, but more fitful. It came from a nearby cluster of rocks. Except for the singing, which seemed to have died down, the island seemed completely uninhabited- even by seabirds. Could it be the spirit of the north wind that Eska had mentioned

"Hello?" she hazarded.

The flapping sound continued, but stayed behind the rocks.

The young woman gulped and poked her head over the rubble. A pair of large yellow eyes greeted her.

Korra barreled down the beach screaming like a rooster crow, "Amon! Amoooooooooon!"

* * *

The Equalist immediately dropped the bundle of gear in his hands and took up a harpoon. His legs kicked up a trail of snow and grit as he ran to meet her. Something had to be wrong, she had to be in trouble.

"Korra! Korra! What' is it?" he sputtered fiercely. The look of pure concern plastered on his face was impressive.

She reassured him," It's fine, I'm all right. But look, I found the Spirit of the North Wind!" With a bitten back smile (she felt a bit guilty getting him so worked up), she held up a pile of white feathers and fluff scarcely larger than a kuai ball. Its features were indistinguishable, save for a massive set of golden eyes that blinked lazily and a tiny black beak. The owl stared at him for a moment, then yawned, exposing a little pink flag of a tongue.

Amon returned to being peevish, with his anxiety wasted. "That's not the Spirit of the North Wind."

"Well then what is it?" she replied defensively. Upon giving the creature a closer look, it didn't seem obvious- but the Spirit World was a weird place anyhow, what with pandas guarding forests and painted women hanging around lakes. The owl spirit blinked, then wriggled out of her grasp. It landed with a hollow thud. Korra decided, powerful spirit or not, that it was a ditsy-looking thing.

"Because that's Ookpik."

It took remembering the gravity of their situation to keep Korra from laughing. _That was Ookpik?_ This adorable ball of fuzz was the powerful spirit she and Jinora suspected was the culprit? "How do you know?"

"Northern Water Tribe children are given toys made in her form. Her presence protects them from danger," he explained absently, staring down at the creature. Out of the feathered sides of her plump body, two tiny wings flapped furiously. She shot up like a bouncing ball and fluttered back down a few feet away. She winked at the two waterbenders... or appeared to.

"I think she wants us to follow her," Korra chuckled. She knew Ookpik was probably an important guardian spirit, but it was impossible not to smile at a living stuffed toy (though Amon was succeeding well enough). The owl spirit hopped silently in place to confirm

They gathered up a pack of supplies each and ran after the strange spirit, who had fluttered to where the beach met tree-studded hill. Considering their amount and age, it was astonishing that not a single fallen tree littered the forest floor. They were perfectly straight, almost uniform.

The path Ookpik led them on, however, was not. For nearly an hour the mute owl guided them over hill and crevice, around rocks in circles, over the same stream twice, and into a massive snowbank. After looping a particular tree three times, they had had enough. It was dark and neither waterbender had been able to dry off or warm themselves, save for a ball of fire in Korra's hand that lit the way.

"What gives, Ookpik?!" the Avatar groaned around a mouthful of dried fish. If their path had been anything near a straight line she could have tolerated its length, but the owl seemed to have the directional sense of Bolin after half a bottle of cactus juice.

With a heavy flurry of her wings, Ookpik flitted up then landed on Amon's head. From under her round belly (or what they had assumed to be her belly) jutted a small black foot tipped with talons. For such a on otherwise harmless-looking creature, they were massive. The foot grabbed repeatedly in Korra's direction.

Amon winced," I think she's hungry."

"Really?" Korra nearly snorted up her fish at the sight. It looked like he was wearing a massive, blinking fur hat.

"Yes," he shrugged his shoulders up," Hurry please, she's digging her other foot in..."

A little digging from her pack produced a generous piece of blubbered seal jerky, fairly tender so she could break off bites for their dotty spirit guide. "Here you go, Ookpik," she waved a chunk at Amon's forehead. He sighed in resignation. They would have a funeral for his dignity when they got back, she thought with a snicker.

The owl wasn't having it; she knew when she was being duped. Suddenly, Ookpik lunged forward, snatched the entire piece of jerky from Korra's hand, and flew to a nearby boulder. They expected her to take her time ripping prize into strips and guzzling it down in the manner of most raptors, but this was no ordinary bird. Half of Ookpik's head split to reveal a massive jaw lined with serrated black teeth that looked like volcanic glass. It hinged open like a hungry snake. Within a single, voracious bite, the meat was swallowed whole and the hellish-looking mouth disappeared into white fluff.

Amon looked bewildered- that had been using his head as a perch. The Avatar, however, seemed amused, "Huh... welp, that's the Spirit World for you..."

Now sated, Ookpik resumed happily bouncing around the forest while the waterbenders followed with renewed vigor (considering the recent revelation about their guide's anatomy). When Yue had risen above the skeletal canopy, they stopped once more. The owl had roosted in the crook of a tree that stood on the crest of a hill. On the other side they could see a pale glow that illuminated the surrounding trunks. Korra immediately snapped out her flame.

They ran to the source of the haunting light and came upon the pale stone from their dreams, surrounded by green grass untouched by snow. While Amon was cautious and stood studying the object in its periphery, Korra couldn't help but reach out and touch it. Cold, like ice, and smoother than glass. City lights paled it in brightness, but it gleamed in iridescent blue, purple, and brilliant white.

"The Tear of the North Star," she murmured, dumbstruck. Ookpik must have led them in circles until the moon rose, otherwise its glow wouldn't have been as bright.

Since they had finally stopped, Korra made a proper fire from grass surrounding the stone soaked in oil. The search for dry kindling had proved futile after the storm and the snow that continued to fall in sparse flakes. Once the lapping golden heat touched their skin, they became acutely aware of how cold they had been for so long. They had forgotten what warmth felt like. As Korra dug through the packs for substantial food, Amon bended snow from the hill into an overhanging canopy. The abusive elements had turned their flesh ashen and Korra's lips were beginning to tinge a sickly purple.

He slid off his thick parka and held it near the fire. With tired sweeps, he extracted the water from its fibers. Korra watched him from the other side, chin to her knees. He had slightly unbuttoned his sopping wet tunic at the neck to warm his skin and as he moved she swore she saw a smudge of faded blue. Noatak's tattoos, she thought, drifting back to her dream.

In truth, studying him now, he didn't seem too physically changed from back then. Time shaped everyone, differently. So did experience- but what had he seen? What turned the idealistic, perhaps admittedly hunky youth into the brooding man whose eyes always seemed to be filled with dark regret. Even when he smiled.

"You should dry off your clothes," he advised flatly. He had sensed her gaze upon him and seemed relieved when she looked away to examine her own garments.

Korra remembered that all she wore under her tunic were her wrappings. No way she'd take it off in front of him. "I'm good!" she replied.

Amon rolled his eyes. "Listen, you know very well..."

Before he could lecture any further, she stood up (albeit crouched under the icy roof) and summoned gusts of warm air from the fire. Almost instantly she was dry, though she couldn't shake the cold numbness in her hands and feet. "There," she sniffed haughtily, "All dry. Spirits, you're worse than my Dad."

That remark made him visibly sulk. With a boastful grin, Korra unwrapped a greasy parcel which had been buried in the very bottom of her bag: a roasted slab of tiger seal meat, stuffed with wild garlic. Another generous gift from Eska. She divvied up her piece and stuck it on the end of a stick to warm over the fire.

"Incoming," she warned before tossing a share over to her sullen companion, which he opted to eat cold and slightly raw. As she tore off warmed morsels to chew, she watched him. It had been something she wondered about, in those bored moments after the fall of the Revolution. When he was a forgotten threat.

"Say Amon?"

"Hm?"

"I was wondering... when you were with the Equalists and had the mask on and all... how did you eat in that thing?"

His steely stare flickered up to hers. It almost seemed offended that she'd asked, though after a moment he humored her. "I didn't," he croaked," I refrained from eating while in the presence of my brethren."

Korra whistled. She always assumed that he was surrounded at all times by his cronies or Equalist fangirls- like a politically rebellious Tahno. Or that he only ate noodles because they could be slurped through the mouth slit in his mask. The image of a fully outfitted Amon with noodles dangling from his mask made her snort.

"What?" he snarled.

"Nothing. Nothing... just..." she took a steadying breath, "That- uh- must've been annoying. Being in the mask all the time."

Amon was quiet, seemingly debating with himself over revealing this sort of information to his nemesis. After a deep, agitated breath, he confessed," I didn't wear the mask all the time. As I said, only in the presence of the followers. That day- at the arena, was the first time any of them had seen my true face."

"So then..." Korra mused apprehensively, putting two and two together.

"Yes. I conducted certain affairs around the city in disguise. Reconnaissance, mainly. I used to pose as a worker in Hiroshi Sato's factory- I wanted to know what sort of man I was dealing with and the conditions of his non-bending employees. Sometimes I attended Equalist rallies at the university. I got myself arrested under an alias to better understand how to break my brethren out of the Republic City jail... and..." he gave her a particularly startling smile, "I attended all of your Pro-Bending matches."

What little warmth Korra had acquired in the last half hour sapped from her veins. She gaped at him, stared at him trying to remember if she saw him at the arena or around town. How often was he mere steps behinds her and she had no idea? "Did... did.." she sputtered, "Did we ever talk?"

The Equalist seemed pleased with his handwork, though none of it mattered any more. He shook his head, "No. On a few occasions, I was tempted- your little coming out soiree to tease the press, for one. But you knew my voice far too well by that point, too large of a risk."

Korra's mind was swimming. Most people wore masks to hide who they truly were, all Amon had to do was take his off. No one would have ever suspected- even her after that terrifying night on Memorial Island. And Republic City- it's citizens- no idea that they were really looking out for the wrong visage...

"So did you ever pose as a waterbender?" The acid in her voice left no doubt as to what she was insinuating.

Amon's snarled, "I gave up waterbending for the Equalists. If there had been a way to cleanse people of their impurity without using bending I would have given anything to discover it." His hands balled into fists to fight the obvious anger surging through him: Korra was awakening old demons.

"Listen," the Avatar urged gravely, "I understand why you hated benders. There were a lot of thugs taking advantage of innocent people and the council wasn't doing anything about it. Your father was one of them. Yeah, there are a lot of benders who abuse their power... but there are just as many who use it for good and you had no right to pass judgement for the evil of a few."

"That's beautiful rhetoric, but it still ignores that most of the world wasn't born lucky like us. Someone needed to unite them, to recognize that they possess dignity, importance. That they can defend themselves against corruption and privilege."

"You're right. And that someone wasn't you- that's a fight for non-benders to lead. And they have."

Amon's boiling rage quelled to sate his curiosity, "What?"

Korra smiled serenely. That's right, he probably didn't know. News of the changes in Republic City probably hadn't reached Tyra's remote shores or his anonymous exile. "The Equalists are still around- they've gotten a lot of good things done in the city and they did it all without masks or scaring people. Non-benders are in the police force, armed with your gloves. They have their own representative on the council now, Rinchen- your Lieutenant, he gathered up your supporters after you disappeared. Everyday, things are getting a little better for them..."

"Finally, progress. After all that work, all that blood our cause has been realized," he ranted proudly. It was eerie how quickly he slipped back into his old patter, his old dramatic intensity. At the very lease for her own sake, Korra couldn't let him stay there...

"I guess," she shrugged, "Except that the first thing Rinchen did was publicly denounce you as a traitor. Also that you were crazy.. I mean, it's true, people do say you were the inspiration behind the movement making ground... but they use you as an example of what _not_ to do."

At the end of her report, despite his Lieutenant's further stinging betrayal, Amon was beaming with pride. "But we still made a difference. Our pains did, in the end, improve the lives of the nonbenders. However the world thinks of me- of Amon- doesn't matter as long as progress has come to pass."

It wasn't the conclusion that she approved of, but Korra couldn't refute that it was true. Sure, Amon's name was used as a slur in the city's underbelly synonymous with 'traitor' and current Equalists were forbidden to utter it in polite society- but things had changed for the better in the wake of the Revolution. She sighed, cracking her tired shoulders, "I guess. That's kind of like saying that Harmony happened because the Fire Nation killed Katara's mother, but... sure, you're kind of right."

There was a lot more unsaid. Amon looked as though he was fighting to keep a bottle full of frustration and bitterness corked while she had several questions still poking at her- but she was anxious now that her belly was filled. Only a few feet away, the Tear of the North Star sat gleaming in its celestial beauty. As her thoughts turned to Jinora, Naga, and the children of Tyra, it seemed to glow even brighter- like a lantern lighting her path.

Korra staggered to her feet and stretched. On the opposite side of the fire, Amon was still lost in Equalist nostalgia. She cleared her throat, "All right. I'm heading out. I'm going to need you to watch me while I'm gone."

Amon quirked his head quizzically, "Watch you...?"

"Take care of my body while I'm out. I need to be able to find it to come back. Just make sure nothing tries to kill me or Fire Nation princes steal me or anything, okay?"

The joke was lost on him, but he nodded. Just to make sure neither of them froze to death, Korra augmented the fire with a heavy stream of bending from her mouth. Her last (and only) trips into the Spirit World didn't take too long, but she remembered stories from Aang's time of him being out for days on end and returning half-starved. She also wasn't completely sold on leaving her physical body with her former enemy, alone, in the middle of the ocean where no one could find it... but Ookpik was nearby, dozing on a branch. Surely as a spirit guardian she would snap Amon's head off if he tried anything...

She sat down in a modified lotus form that she always found more comfortable than the one Tenzin taught her. Behind her, the Tear of the North Star gleamed brighter than ever. The last, physical thing she saw before clearing her mind was Amon, staring in silent reverence at her side, half of his face highlighted in the glow of the Star.

From the cool waters of thoughtlessness that eventually enveloped her like welcome sleep, Korra slid into a forest feet first. In some ways, it looked a great deal like the island- covered in tall, stately trees, except these were alive. Their leaves spread in a thick canopy all the colors of dawn: pink, orange, and purple, shot through with silver twigs and boughs. The swirling, murky sky above was its usual dull tawny for the Spirit World this time of year... or any time, really. With an unceremonious grunt she landed in a pile of rectangular purple leaves that smelled of cinnamon and orange peel. She fished a leaf out of her her hair and looked around the clearing for a welcoming party.

Who would she seek out? Perhaps a friend of Ookpik or Yue- but where? The Spirit World was vast and unnavigable, even with the memories of her past lives offering advice. It seemed like it was always changing, almost to tease her. Thankfully though, decent help was always close at hand. Korra thought of who she wanted to see most at that moment...

"Did Ookpik send you on a wild turkey goose chase?" asked a familiar, jovial voice behind her.

The Avatar whirled around and saw a tall, bearded man leaning on an weather-beaten stone shrine, gray eyes twinkled as he grinned down at her. A smile equally as big and toothy split her own face the second she felt his presence.

"Aang!"

**Notes**

-As noted in Chapter 3, Ookpik is the Inuit word for owl. However in the 1960s, Ookpik became a mascot for Indigenous/First Nations handicrafts and spawned an entire generation of stuffed toys and books. So really she's not too far off as a protector of children (teddy bears have been doing that for a hundred years, after all).

-Rinchen is a Tibetan name that I liked. Not insinuating that Lieu is an airbender by any means, I just felt that I couldn't call him Lieu or Lu Ten with a clear conscience. Sorry fandom! (I still love Lieumon, might allude to some later.)

-This chapter was written to the soundtracks to Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind (the latter part of the Requiem was inspiration for Ookpik) and Princess Mononoke (both by the incomparable Joe Hishaishi) and The Island: Come and See by the Decemberists.


End file.
